


Lockdown

by Neyiea



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dorks in Love, Friends to Lovers, Jeremiah is working through a few things, Locked In, M/M, Pining, Sharing a Bed, never-sprayed Jeremiah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23103019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Jeremiah didn't need a present tied up with a bow; there was no greater gift than what had already been freely offered to him. Patronage. Companionship. The possibility of a true friendship. He calls Bruce to tell him this.That one act changes everything.
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 132
Kudos: 338





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write something soft and sweet for a while, because Bruce deserves nice things (!!!), and I'm kind of excited to finally be writing a healthy relationship dynamic again fffffff. I'm going to attempt to update every Tuesday, so I'll catch y'all next week. 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy. <3

He saw the present, he read the tag, his heart pounded excitedly in his chest and his fingers itched to undo the ribbon. However… He put his curiosity on the backburner and dialed a new number instead, intent on saying that a present was not necessary. There was no greater gift that he could have been given than what had already been freely offered to him. He was not quite as smooth over the phone as he would have liked to be, but he felt that he got his point across, and then Bruce Wayne said:

“I didn’t send you anything.” 

And. 

“Don’t open it.” 

And. 

“I’m coming over.”

The warmth in Jeremiah’s chest turned icy, and his shaking hands dialed a long-memorized number.

Several hours later with Ecco and Bruce on either side of him he received a call about the gaseous contents found within the Jack in the Box inside of the package, as well as the recorded message that had been left for him.

Ecco had wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and Bruce had laid a hand over top of Jeremiah’s own as he began to shake.

“I’m glad that you called me,” Bruce had said.

Jeremiah was, too.

Two days later he’d received a package from Arkham. He’d almost been too scared to open it; worried about another trick, another trap. He’d poured himself a few glasses of liquid courage before daring to peer inside.

He’d found a diary.

He couldn’t even make it ten pages in.

He’d poured himself another drink. 

Some way or another, he can’t recall exactly how, he’d found himself on the phone heaving uneven breaths as Bruce’s steady voice washed over him, telling him that it would be okay.

“I lied,” he’d said in response to Bruce’s attempts at comfort. “I lied about him when we were children. He wasn’t very kind, and he was sometimes cruel, and I was sure that someday he would do something to me, but—” 

He couldn’t bring himself to finish.

Bruce had been silent for a long time. Long enough that Jeremiah had thought he’d been hung up on, or that Bruce was about to tell him not to call ever again.

“You were a kid,” Bruce had said eventually, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant. 

“So was he,” Jeremiah had choked out.

Jerome had grown into a wicked man who dreamt of death and madness, and Jeremiah would have to live the rest of his life wondering if some of the terrible acts of his brother could be traced back to the stories he’d told as a child.

He might have dodged Jerome’s final attack, but that didn’t mean that everything was free to go back to how it had been before.

Even without the gas something inside of Jeremiah had changed.

He could only hope that it was for the better.

Ecco had found him hours later, still in the previous day’s suit and smelling like a bar. 

She had poured him a glass of water, pressed two painkillers into his hand, and told him, “You can’t change the past.” And then her eyes softened just a touch, their years of familiarity shining through. “But you can change the future, Jeremiah.”

A timid beam of hope broke through the clouds of grief.

“Thank you Ecco.”

“Anything for you, boss.” She’d folded her arms behind her back and stood up straighter, reverting to her more serious self. “Bruce Wayne is dropping by this morning. Might I suggest that you shower before he gets here?”

He’d almost choked on his water.

Then he took her advice.

And although Jeremiah still had so many thoughts and feelings to sort through as he mourned for the brother that had almost killed him, that had almost changed him, by the time Bruce showed up on his doorstep something dark that had been roiling inside of him had begun to settle. 

Ecco was right; Jeremiah could not change the past. He couldn’t take back the lies he’d told. He couldn’t ask Jerome why they’d started drifting apart. He couldn’t fix their relationship before it had shattered beyond repair. He couldn’t bring any of his family back from the dead.

But he and Bruce Wayne? They could change the future. They could make Gotham a better place. They could even make the world a better place.

Together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've actually made a lot of progress so you guys get an extra chapter this week, as a treat. :)  
> See ya on Tuesday (that's when the fun really starts, haha).

Their first two meetings in the bunker are… Not entirely strained—surprisingly. Jeremiah had expected them to hold a certain undeniable, uncomfortable weight after his poorly thought out phone call and drunken emotional upheaval—but there are lengthy pockets of quiet that Jeremiah doesn’t know how to fill, because he’s so used to being alone and not feeling a need to speak out loud unless it’s truly necessary. 

Their interactions on the day they’d first met had felt natural; tense only because of the situation that had caused their encounter in the first place, but now that they weren’t facing mortal peril…

Small talk is a hurdle that he never imagined he’d have to face.

He’s not sure if the drawn-out pauses between their brief conversations are awkward, or if the situation is new enough to him that it only feels awkward, but Bruce very kindly doesn’t appear too troubled when Jeremiah’s attention focuses on the piles of paperwork that need to be read and they lapse into a silence broken only by the turning of pages.

He sometimes peers up at Bruce’s face from beneath his lashes in an attempt to get a read on his new patron who seems just as content to let the stillness hover around them, unbroken, as Jeremiah is.

Bruce’s face shifts between serious and contemplative as he looks over the schematics and equations coating Jeremiah’s office walls. He never looks down at his phone as if he’s bored, never shifts around as if he’s eager to leave, never rolls his eyes at the way Jeremiah very carefully reads each line of the lengthy agreement that he’s meant to eventually sign. Bruce seems to understand the significance not only of Jeremiah forming a partnership—however brief it may turn out to be, should the generators be the only project that they collaborate on—with Wayne Enterprises, but the level of trust that needs to be involved in such a partnership.

His greatest wish or not, he wouldn’t let just anyone fund his generators. Not if he couldn’t be sure of their intentions. Not if he couldn’t be sure that his work wouldn’t be mutilated beyond recognition. Not if his rights as the creative force behind the project would be downplayed or distorted so that the company had more say over how everything would turn out. 

Bruce, at least, he felt he could trust. There was, after all, something to be said about facing certain death side by side with someone and the both of you coming out alive. There was a significance in the way that Bruce had carried himself and voiced his opinions during their first meeting that had made standing up to fear seem like an action that Jeremiah could carry out. Jeremiah had never trusted someone so quickly in his life. It went against his very nature to put his faith in someone he’d just met. 

And yet… He’d left his bunker behind and followed Bruce to the gallows and, even considering the events that had followed, he didn’t regret it. 

Bruce was someone he could trust. It was merely a fact, now. 

But the others who would be overseeing this project, and the lawyers who’d drafted up his contract? Not nearly so much. 

Everything was in order, though. In his careful combing of each passage he hadn’t read over a line that triggered any internal alarms or come across any bureaucratic jargon that he felt needed an explanation, and after what was surely hours of making absolutely certain that he and his work weren’t going to be exploited in any way he finally signed and dated the final page before turning it over to Bruce, who took the pen Jeremiah offered to him with a solemn face before signing and dating as the witness.

The soft scratching of pen on paper had never made Jeremiah feel quite so exhilarated.

It was really happening. His most impactful design finally getting the support it needed to become a reality.

Bruce set down the pen and, though his expression was as serious as it always tended to be, there was a very slight upward tick at the corner of his mouth when he caught Jeremiah’s eyes. 

“I look forward to working with you, Mister Valeska,” he said, offering out his hand. Jeremiah didn’t even have to think before taking it in his own. Bruce’s handshake was firm, much like it had been on the day they first met. Professional in a way that Jeremiah had absentmindedly thought was surprising for an eighteen-year-old, heir to a company or otherwise. “The amount of good that your generators are going to do for Gotham will be extraordinary.”

Of course, Jeremiah thought, too confident in his own work for there to be even a shadow of a doubt that it would be anything less than brilliant.

“Thank you,” is what he said, though, and he really did mean it.

He was thankful for the opportunity. Thankful for Bruce’s belief in his design. Thankful that Bruce had been content to let Jeremiah go at his own pace through the paperwork while making himself available to answer any questions that might have arisen.

Thankful that he’d somehow gotten the chance to cross paths with Bruce more than a handful of times. 

There was something—perhaps a mutual understanding of sorts; a kind of bond that was forged when facing a life or death situation together—that made Jeremiah hope that their business relationship could turn amiable.

It would be nice to have a friend.

“I’ll have everything processed tonight, and you can get started as soon as tomorrow morning.” Bruce paused for a moment, fingers twitching minutely in Jeremiah’s grip before they both drew their hands apart. “If you need any special tools brought here, please let me know. I realize that you’ll be electronically sending all your notes to the lab at Wayne Enterprises, but I hope you wouldn’t find it an imposition if I came to watch you work, every now again.” His eyes filtered over to the 3D model that had first caught his attention a week ago. “I find your work fascinating.”

A smile pulled at Jeremiah’s lips, any lingering unease about long silences quickly drowned out by the compliment.

Fascinating.

It was, wasn’t it? Though not everybody understood it or appreciated it.

“You’re welcome any time. Just let me know in advance to expect you. When I get a security alert about someone approaching my front door…” He trailed off, hoping to let his obvious paranoia and nervousness go unsaid.

Not that Bruce wasn’t aware of how much of a mess Jeremiah was capable of making of himself. He thought about what he could recall of their conversation a few nights back and tried not to outwardly react to his own mortification.

A less than ideal impression. He hoped for a few opportunities to show Bruce what he was like when not dealing with death, madness, or emotional trauma that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be fully equipped to deal with. 

Bruce nodded, evidently not requiring Jeremiah to explain that even if Jerome was no longer a threat, that didn’t mean that he would suddenly become less of the high-strung recluse that he had transformed into over the years.

Another thing to be thankful for. 

Their third meeting in the bunker is a fleeting event compared to the ones previous. Bruce comes to drop off a few things that Jeremiah had requested via email—still too hung up on their last phone conversation to dare dialing Bruce’s number—and lingers just long enough to watch Jeremiah unpack and check over each piece of new equipment. He asks questions about the intended use of each component that are well enough informed that Jeremiah doesn’t mind answering them more in depth than he would attempt for anyone else who was not even a fellow engineer. Or anyone else, period. Bruce thanks Jeremiah for his time before he goes, his eyes casting around the office as if he’s full of questions that he’s holding back.

He’s gone before Jeremiah can think to remind him that as long as he gives notice he’s welcome to drop by without an excuse. Jeremiah has locked the entire world out for so long, has lived in a state of isolation and restricted access in order to keep himself safe, that he’s not sure he could invite Bruce back again in the same smooth way that he can explain the intricacies of his designs. 

But he doesn’t think he’d mind the company.

He thinks he might actually enjoy it, even, the act of explaining his work and answering questions. Not only because Bruce had a tendency to compliment that appealed greatly to Jeremiah’s sense of self, but also because Bruce seems more like a peer than a financial backer. An equal.

His bunker gives the impression of being more quiet than usual in the wake of Bruce’s departure, but the lure of new, state of the art equipment is eventually enough to take Jeremiah’s mind off of it.

Their fourth meeting had been planned in advance, a weekly routine checkup, and Jeremiah had actually been looking forward to it until he awoke on the day of with dried tears on his face and a heaviness in his chest that left him choking on shallow gasps of air. 

Flickering scenes of his childhood going dim. Memories turned to nightmares turned to what-ifs. Blood and gore and malicious laughter echoing in his head. 

It’s impossible not to think about Jerome’s diary. About the terrible and violent things that had been scrawled across the several pages that Jeremiah had seen. About the fact that Jeremiah had hastily thrown it into a drawer and left it there instead of destroying it, as he probably should have done so that its lingering presence couldn’t haunt him. But just as much as he wants to tear apart the pages—shred them, burn them, have Ecco scatter the ashes as far away from him as possible—he also dreads the very notion of handling it again. The idea of opening the drawer and laying his eyes upon it makes him feel as though a thousand insectoid legs are crawling across his skin; as if Jerome is tormenting him from inside his grave.

He tries not to let it show but he can’t stop thinking about the few fragments of his dreams that he does remember, even after Bruce arrives. 

As he slept he’d thought he’d felt a gust of air against his face, and in his dream his vision had been hindered by a dense fog, though not to the point that he hadn’t been able to see a jack in the box with a heavily scarred face.

“Hello brother,” Jerome’s voice had sing-songed.

_I’ve been waiting for this moment for fifteen years._

_You turned everyone I ever loved against me, my own flesh and blood!_

_We all could go insane with just one bad day. I guess with you it’s more like one bad spray. You’ll see._

Jeremiah’s hands begin to shake. His shoulders curl forward as if to make himself into less of a target. His thoughts turn to static and he becomes even more quiet than usual, not sure that he’ll be able to manage speech with his current level of increasing distress as his mind spirals. 

Bruce watches him keenly, and for the first time since they met Jeremiah wishes that he would look away. 

“Are you alright?”

Jeremiah goes still. To admit it would be to show even more weakness. But it’s already obvious, isn’t it?

He shakes his head mutely. From the corner of his eye he can see Bruce draw closer.

“Is there anything that I can do to help?”

“There’s—” his voice is rough to his own ears, as if he hasn’t spoken in a decade. He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes, hating that they’ve started to sting almost as much as he hates feeling powerless against what had almost come to pass. Chance was the only thing that had saved him. If he’d opened that package…

Dismissive words echo around his head—there’s nothing you can do. I had a bad night. This will pass. I’ll survive—but they just make his chest feel tighter.

“A few days after Jerome died, I received a package from Arkham,” he begins, and once the words start coming he can’t seem to stop. The diary. The graphic pages. The way he’d hidden it away and couldn’t bear to take it out again. How much he wanted it gone. And when Bruce asks which drawer he’d thrown it in Jeremiah doesn’t hold back the answer. And when Bruce takes it out and slips it into an inner pocket of his jacket Jeremiah feels…

The beginnings of relief; a sip of cool water during a fever. 

The action wasn’t nearly enough to fix everything, but it was enough to make him feel a little better.

“You don’t have to bear burdens alone, Mister Valeska,” Bruce says in the gentle voice that one might use to speak to a spooked animal. “Not anymore.”

A rough laugh slips from between Jeremiah’s lips. It’s a brittle sound, but it could have been worse.

It could have been unhinged.

“Call me Jeremiah, please. I think we’ve been through too much together for formalities, at this point.”

“Jeremiah,” Bruce echoes with a nod. “Is there anything else I can do?”

Destroy it. Never let me see it again. Let me forget that I ever looked at it.

“Come back tomorrow? I’m afraid I’m not the best company at the moment.”

And he doesn’t think he’ll be able to get any work done, either.

“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. If you need anything, or something changes and you want to reschedule, please don’t hesitate to call.” His hand briefly presses down on Jeremiah’s shoulder. Jeremiah can’t help but think back to the night that he’d almost been changed, and the reassuring weight of Bruce’s hand over top of his own. “I don’t want to impose.”

It’s almost funny; the way they mutually tip-toe around each other’s boundaries, not wanting to turn themselves into an inconvenience. Bruce holds himself back during his visits but offers an easy link in the form of his cell number. Jeremiah is wary of calling him after the last fiasco but wouldn’t mind if he dropped by more often or stayed for longer.

“It wouldn’t be an imposition,” he says, remembering what he’d meant to say the last time Bruce had come and gone. “You are welcome here.” If Bruce could remind Jeremiah that he could call at any time, then Jeremiah could remind Bruce that his presence was appreciated. “I like having you around.”

He can’t bring himself to look over, but he does find himself wondering if Bruce smiles at the statement. 

Hours later when Ecco comes in with his bi-weekly delivery of groceries he tells her about his dreams, and the diary, and that Bruce had taken it off of his hands. 

“I could have done that for you,” she says to him frankly—and Jeremiah does honestly feel a little foolish for not asking it of her the morning after he’d flipped through those few, devastating pages—but she tilts her head in consideration before adding, “I’m glad that you have someone else looking out for you, though.”

I want to look out for him, too, Jeremiah thinks. He’d never wanted to look out for anyone when he was on lockdown, back before his life had taken the turn he’d been both preparing for and dreading ever since he’d left his old life behind. He never thought he’d want to.

They could be peers… Equals…

“I think that we could be friends,” he admits to Ecco softly. It feels strange, to want to foster a connection. New and exciting, and something that he’s not entirely sure how to do. “Aside from you I’ve never made a friend before.”

“Work together,” she suggests with a shrug. “He comes over to see how you’re progressing, correct?” He nods in confirmation, and she continues. “So get him to take notes for you, or hand you things, anything that will make him feel like he’s more involved in the process. He doesn’t know you very well, and right now he probably thinks he’ll bother you if he does more than sits back and watches. He might think that he’s bothering you even when he’s doing only that.” She reaches out and gives him a soft pat on the back of his hand before she brushes past him. “But he comes to see you Jeremiah, when he doesn’t actually have to. I think that he believes that you could be friends, too.”

So, on their fifth meeting in the bunker, Jeremiah initiates what he will eventually come to think of as one of the most important actions of his life. It’s not something he would usually offer, not even when he’d still been in school and was occasionally forced to work in a group, but Bruce… he wasn’t like other people.

Jeremiah looks at Bruce, and with nothing but a genuine desire to further their rapport he says,

“I could use an extra hand, if you wouldn’t mind.”

A smile just wide enough to show a hint of pearly teeth breaks out over Bruce’s habitually somber face, and his eyes light up with a delightful enthusiasm.

It’s rather like seeing the sun break through the clouds after weeks of grey, stormy skies. 

Jeremiah can’t _not_ smile in return. 

“I’d love to help,” Bruce says.

Jeremiah believes him, and it doesn’t take long for him to discover that there is more to Bruce Wayne than he could have ever imagined. Bruce is thoughtful, inquisitive, intelligent, and he makes for an excellent work partner. 

And Jeremiah is even happier to discover, as the weeks progress into months and the generators take shape, that he makes for an even better friend.


	3. Chapter 3

Months of hard work, successive instances of long days slipping into longer nights, and finally it was time for the first test.

Jeremiah has been feeling a bit fluttery ever since he woke up, excited and eager and oddly flushed, and when Ecco comes to check on him in the morning she looks him up and down critically before a knowing smile crosses her face.

“Good luck today, boss.”

Jeremiah clears his throat and re-ties his tie. “Luck has very little to do with it, Ecco. The generator will work. I know it will work. I know the ins and outs of it better than I know the back of my own hand. I just—I want it to be perfect.”

It won’t be some group of strange men in suits looking for flaws that didn’t exist who would be with him on this first test run. It would be someone whose opinion actually mattered.

“The generator isn’t what I’m wishing you luck on.”

“Oh?” He raises his eyebrows at her as he finishes with his tie, then he goes about straightening his cufflinks. “Then what is it?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Jeremiah,” she tells him, something humorous in her tone. “I’m going out for the day, call if you need me.”

“Of course, thank you Ecco.”

She nods her head and steps out of the office, and it isn’t long after she leaves that Bruce arrives.

Bruce has been a good benefactor. A good friend, even. There are very few people in his life that Jeremiah had gotten close to after his departure from the circus. Only Ecco, really, before now. Often times people seemed…

Lackluster, to put it kindly. 

Perhaps that was partly due to his confidence and pride as a proven childhood genius, or perhaps the narcissism he’d accumulated was a symptom of some form of neurosis that had never been properly dealt with. Jeremiah doesn’t want to think too hard about that, now, considering all that he’d gone through with Jerome. They shared the same blood, the same face, it wasn’t impossible that they might have shared other traits that were better left unsaid. 

Jeremiah wants to be better than his brother was; he’s not exactly sure what Jerome’s trap was meant to do to him, but the recorded message had given him enough of a clue. Whatever Jerome had meant for him, he wants to be the opposite of it.

It means change. But not all change is bad.

Before Jerome made his move on him Jeremiah had been stagnating underground; working on projects that sparked fervency inside of him but cut off from civilization. It was when things began to change that he found someone, beyond Ecco, that he felt he could connect with.

There are few people in this world that Jeremiah has considered clever enough to work alongside. Bruce is… So different from the others who Jeremiah has crossed paths with. Recognizing his brilliance, putting his faith into Jeremiah’s mind and hands, proving himself to be far more brave and clever and capable than any gossip magazine would have people believing…

Jeremiah opens his office door to let Bruce in, and the fluttering inside of him intensifies at the small smile Bruce sends his way.

The test, as expected, goes off without a single hitch.

And Bruce looks—

Beautiful and ethereal bathed in the blue light that the generator casts. 

Oh, Jeremiah thinks distantly as he watches Bruce step closer, unable to tear his gaze away from Bruce’s glimmering eyes and smiling mouth.

_Oh._

A world-shaking revelation it is not. He already knows that he’s fond of Bruce and that he enjoys spending time with Bruce. Realizing that he’s also attracted to Bruce is slight when compared to those other, far more significant facts. He’s found people attractive before—in a distantly appreciative, blasé sort of way; the underlying mathematical architecture of their facial structure, how closely their faces and builds followed the golden ratio—though never quite like this.

Never towards someone he actually _knew_ or _cared about._

Bruce speaks to him and Jeremiah struggles to hear him through the sudden loud pounding of his heart in his ears. 

“Yes,” he manages once he’s able to figure out the gist of Bruce’s question. “We can power all of Gotham with what we have. With the amount of bustle in the city for the generators to convert into power I suspect that Gotham will never go dark.”

Nothing like Jerome’s mad night would ever happen again. 

“That’s amazing.” Bruce’s smile widens a fraction. “I can’t wait to announce our initiative. You’ll accompany me for that, won’t you? They are your generators, after all.”

Jeremiah feels oddly caught between wanting to move closer to Bruce—wanting to reach out and trace the curve of his lips with his fingers—and wanting to abruptly retreat. 

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he manages to say, even though his throat has suddenly gone dry and his tongue feels weighted in his mouth.

He knows that it’s not a good idea.

Bruce’s smile lessens and his eyebrows start to furrow, and Jeremiah finds himself feeling guilty for ruining some of his happiness. He turns away, heading for his decanter. He pours two glasses, hoping that the action will make it seem less like he’s badly coping with the idea of going outside and more like he wants to celebrate their success. When he turns he can see concern settling firmly on Bruce’s features and he’s fairly certain that his ruse has failed.

He presses a glass into Bruce’s hand anyways, and Bruce accepts it gracefully.

Their fingers brush.

Their fingers have brushed before, Bruce has touched him purposefully on more than one occasion, and Jeremiah remembers that he used to think the uptick in his heartrate was secondary to his solitude—neither he nor Ecco were particularly physically affectionate, and she had been the only person he spent time with for years so of course he wasn’t accustomed to the tactile sensation of someone else’s skin against him—but he’s starting to suspect that maybe it was because it was _Bruce_ who would brush against him, who would lay a hand on his shoulder or overtop of his own, who would stand close enough to watch Jeremiah work that sometimes Jeremiah was certain that he could feel Bruce’s breath on his cheek or neck. 

Something warm and electric runs like a current through him at the simple touch.

Jeremiah hopes the embarrassing flush on his face is rendered invisible under the blue light.

“Cheers to a job well done,” he murmurs, eyes flicking away from Bruce’s face as he tips the glass back against his lips.

“Cheers,” Bruce echoes, and he takes a small sip.

Even when not looking at him to confirm it Jeremiah is sure that Bruce’s gaze is going intense and analyzing as he tries to solve the sudden mystery of Jeremiah’s off-brand behavior.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he starts, because he’s too nice. Bruce would never force Jeremiah to tell him anything. Bruce wouldn’t have to force Jeremiah to tell him anything. Bruce only had to give him a certain look, or sound a certain way, and Jeremiah is sure that all sorts of things would come rushing out of his mouth just as they had when he’d called Bruce after too many drinks and too many pages of his brother’s diary. “But is there a reason why you don’t think it’s a good idea?” He takes Jeremiah’s empty glass before setting both of their glasses down. Jeremiah’s fingers twitch at the sudden lack of something to keep his hands occupied. “Is it because you don’t feel ready to leave your bunker? We could broadcast the announcement from here, if that helped.”

If only it were so simple.

“Bruce,” Jeremiah stops. Sighs. Wishes he had another drink. “When people look at me, they’ll see _him_. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to make myself so easily seen.” He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. Even thinking about it, the way people would look at him when they realized who he shared a surname and a face with, is almost enough to make him feel uncomfortable in his own skin. He’d hated that attention on the day that Jerome had died. He’d hated that Jerome had been so quick to call him ‘brother’, as if the label was meant to put another target on Jeremiah’s back. “Maybe once the memory of Jerome has started to fade away I could consider stepping out for short periods, but in the interim… Gotham knows you, Gotham loves you, so even if I’m not there—”

“Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah’s eyes flicker open and Bruce is giving him a look that’s just as earnest as the one he gave Jeremiah on the day they first met, when he’d spoken so eloquently about standing up to fear that Jeremiah had felt as though he’d been swept away in a tide. Back then it had been enough for Jeremiah to follow after him and do what he feared the most. If Bruce asks him to accompany him again, when he’s looking at Jeremiah like this, Jeremiah doesn’t think he’ll have it within himself to refuse. 

“When I look at you, I don’t see him.”

Jeremiah briefly averts his gaze, mind buzzing, fingers restlessly folding together in front of him. Of course it’s true, because Jeremiah very much doubts that Bruce would be willing to spend quite so much of his free time with Jeremiah otherwise, but hearing it is…

Nice.

And hearing it from someone who matters is nicer, still. 

“Not everyone is as kind as you are, Bruce.”

Some people were bound to bear a grudge and Jeremiah doesn’t think that he could completely fault them for it, even if it would be awful to have strangers thinking that he was more like his brother than he would ever want to be.

Bruce’s lips twist as if he finds something amusing in being called kind, even though that’s really the simplest word to slap on to all of his and Jeremiah’s interactions thus far. 

“I trust you,” Bruce tells him, so matter-of-factly that it makes something in Jeremiah’s chest twinge pleasantly. “Gotham will trust you, too.”

“You can’t be sure,” he says, but he can feel his resolve starting to crumble.

“I am.” Bruce reaches out, taking hold of his hand in what is probably meant to be a reassuring gesture. Jeremiah is almost sure that his heart skips a beat. “I am sure. But I won’t make you do anything that you’d be uncomfortable with.”

He didn’t have to. Jeremiah was more than capable of forcing himself into uncomfortable situations, as if he were chasing after the light and goodness that Bruce seemed to radiate. 

“I’ll think about it,” he whispers, and Bruce’s answering smile makes the likelihood of his giving in hit a truly dangerous percentile. “But I may have conditions. I can’t go out there if I don’t feel safe. I won’t.”

Bruce’s hand tightens around his own. It’s not painful, just grounding, and the contact seems to make it a little bit easier for Jeremiah to bring air into his lungs.

It also makes him feel pleasantly warm, and some of the lingering tightness in his chest unwinds.

“Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Bruce tells him sincerely. “And I’d be with you the entire time.”

Promise, Jeremiah wants to ask, but he manages to keep it back.

“I’ll think about it,” he repeats. “I still have a few more tests I’d like to run before Wayne Enterprises makes the project public. I’ll let you know once I’ve had time to think it over.”

Bruce squeezes his hand one last time before he turns away, his gaze settling back on the generator.

Jeremiah slowly flexes his fingers.

He thinks he already knows what his answer will be. 

Flustered and bizarrely self-conscious—and wanting to do something with his hands before he does anything truly embarrassing; like desperately reach out for Bruce—he undoes the buttons at his cuffs and rolls his sleeves up to his elbows.

His work, at least, is something that he is always comfortable with and confident in. His nerves will settle once his focus shifts back on the generator. He’ll feel more like himself again, and less like a keyed-up mess. 

“I’m going to check a few things while it’s running,” he murmurs as he makes his way towards his desk, gathering a few of the tools that he’d laid out beforehand. “Gauging the current power output, testing the safeguards I installed, that sort of thing. You can stay if you want. It might seem a little tedious after the initial set-up, though.”

“Nothing about this is tedious to me, Jeremiah,” Bruce says, turning to look back at him. He pauses for a moment, and Jeremiah could almost be certain that his gaze briefly flicks down to his bare forearms, but it happens so fast that Jeremiah wonders if he’s not just interpreting something benign as something that he wants to see. “I want to be involved with every step. I know that these are your generators, but they’re very important to me, too.”

“They’re ours,” Jeremiah counters, pleased that he’s able to sound confident and assertive. He wants Bruce to believe him and not just agree with the sentiment in order to mollify him. “This project might not have ever left the planning stages if not for you. They’re our generators.”

“Ours?” Bruce’s voice takes on a somewhat bashful quality. “I feel as though you’re giving me too much credit.”

No one ever seemed to give Bruce _enough_ credit. 

Jeremiah feels so much fondness towards him that he’s surprised he’s not overflowing with it.

“Ours,” Jeremiah repeats firmly as he comes to stand beside Bruce. “And I only give credit where it’s due. Here.” He holds out one of the specialized keys that he’d designed for the control panel. Jeremiah had wanted to be absolutely certain that not just anyone would be able to access the controls—not in a city like Gotham where there were too many people who might want to use the power his generators could harness, produce, and expend for nefarious purposes—and the design of the key would be nearly impossible to replicate without his original files. “Open her up for me?”

Bruce’s eyes lock with Jeremiah’s as he reaches for the key. It’s interesting how such a small gesture can be so monumental. Jeremiah trusts Bruce enough that he’d let him keep it, if he asked, and that level of faith is almost more shocking than all of the other things that he feels towards Bruce.

“It would be my pleasure,” Bruce offers, steadily maintaining the eye contact. He realizes, and accepts, the significance of the action without Jeremiah having to explain it.

And it’s wonderful to be around someone who he doesn’t have to explain everything to.

They spend hours together, tinkering and taking notes, and Jeremiah has become so used to Bruce’s presence—to the way that he talks and the way that he works and the way that he sometimes glances up at Jeremiah from the corner of his eye with a smile softening the edges of his mouth—that any of Jeremiah’s lingering restlessness and unease abates within the first few minutes of work and all that is left is the warm contentment of knowing that Bruce enjoys working alongside of him, that Bruce thinks of him as a friend. 

Bruce is already one of the best friends he’s ever had and, considering that his and Ecco’s friendship had stemmed from years of a beneficial working relationship, Jeremiah can’t help but feel that their chance meeting leading into something so cherished holds a particular significance. Organic and guileless, with no resumes or background checks involved. A natural progression of a connection that Jeremiah had never truly had the chance to experience. 

It all makes so much sense in retrospect. If he was going to develop feelings for anybody, of course it would be for Bruce. 

He knows—even before Bruce bids him goodbye for the evening, even before he pairs his farewell not with his customary action of shaking Jeremiah’s hand but by wrapping a single arm around his shoulders in a loose hug—that wherever Bruce goes he is sure to follow.

Even if it means standing up on a stage in front of people who are bound to see his face and remember exactly who he’s related to in order to announce their clean energy initiative to the people of Gotham. Jeremiah has followed Bruce into what should have been certain death and survived.

He’ll survive again, as long as Bruce is with him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting an extra chapter again this week (mostly because even though I'm still going in to work [woo, healthcare!] I can't do, like, any of my other hobbies with social distancing in effect), hope y'all are staying safe out there.

His hands are shaking so badly that he can’t seem to manage to tie a knot. His hands, used to incredibly delicate work, reduced to this juvenile unsteadiness all because he couldn’t keep his nerves under control. Jeremiah doesn’t even have to _say anything_ , Bruce is going to be doing all of the talking and he just has to stand there and look as sane as possible, but he still feels wound tight at the thought of so many eyes focusing on him, on his face. He tries to take a deep breath to calm himself, but that does little, so instead he reaches for—

A hand slaps his away before he can touch the glass decanter. It barely stings, but it startles him enough that his nervousness is momentarily forgotten. 

Ecco regards him coolly, looking him up and down as if she can see every single crack in his quickly eroding illusion of composure, and her lips slowly draw into a thin line.

“If you’re feeling like this before you’ve even left the bunker then perhaps you shouldn’t go.”

“I’ll be alright,” he says, trying to inject some confidence into his tone. “I’ll be fine, just as soon as—” He stops. Averts his eyes. Feels heat begin to crawl into his cheeks.

“As soon as?” She steps a little closer, and she takes the fabric of the tie in her hands but makes no move to tie it for him. “As soon as Bruce is here?”

He looks back at her and sighs, “yes.”

It’s somehow easier for him to feel brave about this particular plan when Bruce is around. His idealistic side, which had only recently been unearthed from underneath mountains of biting cynicism, leads him to be under the impression that Bruce just happens to bring out the best in him. His cynical side doesn’t try very hard to dispute it.

“Is that why you agreed to this?”

“I agreed to do this for a multitude of reasons, Ecco, not only because Bruce is my friend.” Although that did play a large role, and Ecco was no-doubt aware of it. “It will be good for me to stop lingering underground as if I’m a coward afraid of my own shadow. It will be good for me to show my face and prove that I’m not _him_. My name, my real name, is attached to this project and I want people to remember me for who _I_ am and what _I_ have done, not who I share a surname with. Gotham already knows that Jerome has a twin, they already saw me during that broadcast. I hid myself away because I knew that someday Jerome would come for me, but now Jerome is—” He pauses and licks his dry lips, closing his eyes tightly as if to force himself into forgetting the sight of Jerome’s limp body atop the caved in roof of the car he’d fallen upon. The memory of it, and other memories of Jerome that he’d pushed aside long ago, still occasionally haunt his dreams and he wakes up to tear tracks on his cheeks and a hollowness in his chest. “—he’s dead. He can’t hurt me anymore.” 

Jeremiah can’t hurt him anymore, either. Not with lies. Not with anything. 

“He tried, and he failed. If I could survive that then I can survive this.”

“I don’t know how your friend would feel if he knew that you were thinking about this in terms of survival.” Ecco’s hands drop away and she takes a step back. “I think that Bruce wants you to enjoy this experience, at least a little. There’s been a spring in his step recently whenever he comes down for a visit.” Her lips twist into a slight, amused smile. “He’s so proud of the work that you’ve accomplished. If I didn’t know any better I would think that he was using this as an excuse to show you off.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jeremiah sputters.

“Maybe, maybe not. In any case your partnership is going to lay some new foundations in Gotham. Better foundations. But that doesn’t mean you have to be up on that stage with him if it makes you uncomfortable. It’s okay for you to take it slow and allow yourself to become accustomed to the outside world in a more gradual, less public way.”

“I know. Bruce has told me that himself nearly a hundred times already.”

Ecco’s eyes spark with a now-familiar humour, and the curve of her smile widens.

“Well,” she drawls, “it’s good to know that he’s not forcing you into anything.” 

She couldn’t be less-subtle if she tried. 

There’s a reprimand on the tip of his tongue, he’s sure of it, but it fades away as movement on one of his security feeds catches his eye and he spies Bruce’s car on the monitor. Ecco is quick to follow his line of sight. She hits the control for the main entrance before Bruce even has the chance to press the intercom button, and the knowing look she casts in his direction makes Jeremiah wonder just how obvious he is. 

“I’ll be in the crowd,” she tells him, a promise that helps to ease some of his lingering discomfort. With Ecco and Bruce looking out for him he was likely one of the safest people in Gotham, or at least that’s the way it feels. “If you need me don’t hesitate to call.”

“Of course.”

“I know you don’t need luck, Jeremiah.” She lays a hand on his shoulder and gives it a brief squeeze. “But I wish you luck, regardless. You’ve changed over the past few months. It suits you.”

“Being braver?”

“Being happier,” she answers simply. “You smile more than you used to.”

Heat floods into his cheeks again, but he can’t deny it.

He was content with his life before; he had found satisfaction in his work and he certainly hadn’t been unhappy. But he has other things to looks forward to, now, beyond the delight of drafting a new design and the lure of working on his passion-project. Even through his tumultuous reactions to Jerome’s death and his trap and his personal belongings, and even while considering his occasional poor coping mechanisms, he feels less weighed down than he did before. Lighter. Freer. _Happier,_ yes.

It’s nice to find another person who understands and appreciates him. To find someone who seems to enjoy spending time with him just as much as he enjoys spending time with them. Who _sees_ him. Four months ago Jeremiah Valeska would have rolled his eyes at the notion of needing that sort of human connection. He’d endured years of solitude by choice and a large part of him had believed that he was superior for it. His disconnect was a strength instead of a weakness. 

Perhaps you did not know what you were missing out on until you suddenly had it, and you desperately wanted to keep it. 

“I’ve never had a friend like him before,” he says softly, “it’s—” Dazzling. Monumental. Exquisite. “—nice.” 

He’s never been in love before, either, but even though _he_ knows that _she_ knows, he can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Almost four months—three months, two weeks, and five days to be precise—that’s all it’s been since the fateful day that he and Bruce first crossed paths. From a captivating stranger, to a benefactor, to a friend, to a best friend, to this. If Jeremiah was the sort of person who believed in things like destiny and fate, he might think that he and Bruce were—

There’s a knock on his office door, and his thoughts filter off into static.

Ecco, completely unperturbed, turns and opens to door to greet Bruce with a distinct lack of the curtness that she reserves for most people who aren’t Jeremiah. They haven’t spent much time in each other’s company—the longest stretch was the night when Jeremiah had dodged Jerome’s final trap, when they’d both been there to offer support and keep him from shattering to pieces—but Bruce has proven himself to be a courteous non-threat with a genuine interest in Jeremiah’s work and well-being, so Ecco has begun to allow a bit of warmth to peek through in her brief interactions with him. 

Jeremiah watches as Ecco leans in to whisper something into Bruce’s ear before she brushes past him. Bruce nods at whatever it is that she says, and then his eyes lock on Jeremiah.

Perhaps Ecco only whispered a ‘good luck’ to him as well, unlikely as that may be.

Ecco closes the door behind her as she leaves, and then it’s just them.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m a little tense,” he admits, because he’s not sure if he can tell an outright lie to Bruce’s face. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

He’s half-convinced that Bruce will ask if he’s sure, because he’s asked him that so often ever since Jeremiah had told him that he’d accompany him for the announcement, but thankfully Bruce appears to take his words at face value.

Jeremiah has had multiple chances before now to back out gracefully if he really didn’t think that he could stand it. If he really thought that there were no benefits and were only downsides to his appearing in public again. 

The fact that the biggest benefit was that it would make Bruce happy was beside the point.

“You look very sharp,” he says, trying to keep his mind off of his nerves.

Bruce has forgone his customary layers of black on black for what is perhaps the first time since they’ve met. His suit jacket is a deep blue that makes the subtle warm tones of his skin a little more apparent and his accents are all a vivid shade of red: pocket square, belt, the laces of his brogues. He looks like he’d be at home on the cover of a magazine. 

“Thank you,” Bruce flashes him a smile, “you as well. These colours really bring out your eyes.” He takes a step closer, and then another step, until he’s standing where Ecco had been only a few minutes ago.

“Ecco mentioned that you were having a little difficulty with your tie.”

“ _Did she?_ ”

And here Jeremiah had thought that she’d told Bruce that he was on edge. Clearly Bruce had managed to figure that out for himself.

“I know how to tie a four in hand knot,” Bruce informs him plainly, as if the implied offer of tying Jeremiah’s tie for him was not at all mystifying. “If that’s okay.”

His hands are steadier now thanks to Ecco’s intervention and Bruce’s arrival. He would be able to tie it on his own, though perhaps not as quickly or gracefully as he’d like.

But Jeremiah nods, taking deliberately even breaths in an attempt to slow his heartbeat.

Bruce’s fingers skim against his neck, and Jeremiah wonders if he’s able to feel his pulse jump. 

Bruce makes quick work of the knot; smooth, calculated movements, eyes narrowed in concentration, lips pressed into a stern line. It’s almost sweet, how seriously he seems to take this simple task.

Cute.

“There.” Bruce leans back to appreciate his handiwork, and his eyes dart up to Jeremiah’s face. “Perfect.”

“Thank you,” Jeremiah murmurs, tamping down the sudden but not unexpected urge to lean forward and press a kiss to the corner of Bruce’s solemn mouth to see if he could startle another smile onto his face. “It’s silly, isn’t it, how a bit of stage fright can make things that are second nature difficult?” 

“It’s not silly at all. I know that this is a big step for you, Jeremiah. You don’t have to try and downplay it. It’s alright to be nervous.” Bruce reaches out one last time, straightening the collar of his jacket. His eyes seem to be firmly fixed on Jeremiah’s throat, which Jeremiah distantly finds strange since Bruce almost always looks him directly in the eye while talking to him. 

He’s a little too occupied with the sensation of Bruce’s hands against him to try and parse out what Bruce’s lack of eye contact might mean.

“From the moment you step out of the bunker to the moment that you return I’ll be right beside you.” Bruce’s eyes finally dart up, an earnest look on his face, and Jeremiah’s heart flutters. “Do you need a few more minutes?”

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he tells Bruce.

And then he follows Bruce out of the darkness, and into the light.

x-x-x

Only…

Jerome was dead and buried, and to Jonathan Crane—who had worked alongside Jerome and had even come to think of him as something like a friend—it became apparent very soon afterwards that Jerome’s final act hadn’t finished the way that they’d meant it to.

Hours of toiling on the chemical components of the gas and Jerome’s insidious idea to have it delivered like a gift that Jeremiah wouldn’t be able to resist unwrapping all seemed to be for nothing.

And that was irritating. 

In an act of unusual comradery, before he slipped away into the shadows of Gotham to raise his own kind of hell, Scarecrow had let the details of Jerome’s final plan slip into the hands of his followers.

The special gas was gone. The trap had failed. Jerome was dead and his vision for the city and his brother wouldn’t come to pass. But something should be done about Jeremiah Valeska, regardless.

Scarecrow had left, working on his own once more, sure that the information he had given to a few of Jerome’s key followers would spread through the rest of the Maniax like a virus.

And it did. 

But none of them knew where Jeremiah was hidden. None of them knew when or if he would resurface.

Not until one of them happened to glance up at a live news broadcast in a dingy bar, a sneer pulling at their mouth as soon as they heard the mention of ‘Wayne’, and spotted a familiar face.

Jeremiah Valeska was out.

Jeremiah Valeska was fair game.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back once again, and super happy that you're enjoying this! Your comments really do make my day a little bit brighter! :)
> 
> I have a rough idea of how many chapters this will end up being, though it may end up increasing, but in any case we're aaaalmost to the halfway point (I'm not much for slowburn, ha).
> 
> So, finally, on to the conflict (and they were having such a nice time, sorry boys).

All things considered the entire experience had gone rather smoothly, so much so that Jeremiah feels very-nearly _sheepish_ about how nervous he’d been. 

Bruce had been articulate and passionate to such a great degree that everyone’s focus had been drawn towards him as if he were a magnificent force of nature. Beautiful and powerful; a natural leader effortlessly ensnaring the attention of his followers. There had been a few cautious looks cast in Jeremiah’s direction—as well as few reporters who homed in on him with something dreadfully caustic in their eyes—but Jeremiah had mentally prepared himself for that, and the sound of Bruce’s voice had broken their concentration before Jeremiah had felt too much discomfort at the sharpness of their attention. 

He suspects that it would have gone very differently if some other high-ranking Wayne Enterprises board member, not Bruce, had been there with him instead.

Bruce Wayne—the beloved Prince of Gotham whose life had been threatened by Jerome Valeska during a live broadcast not once, but twice—had put his faith in the person who had the same blood as Jerome running through his veins. That counted for a lot, perhaps even more than Bruce himself was aware of. 

But it was over now, and although it had gone better than anticipated Jeremiah was grateful to be returning home all the same. 

“You really were brilliant up there,” he says, even though this must be the third time that he’s expressed the sentiment since he and Bruce slipped away from the crowd and into Bruce’s car. “You have a way of speaking that is very compelling.”

“That’s good to know,” Bruce responds, eyes briefly darting over to Jeremiah before resting on the road ahead. “If that’s the case then do you suppose I could convince you to invite me inside for a few minutes? I have something that I want to give you.”

“Of course. You’re always welcome, Bruce.”

Jeremiah catches a glimpse of the corner of Bruce’s mouth curling up in one of his occasional, precious smiles.

He feels warm, and rather pleased with himself.

Bruce slows to a stop in front of the bunker’s main entrance and he grabs something from the trunk of the car as Jeremiah goes through the somewhat arduous process of unlocking his own front door from the outside. Whatever it is that Bruce had retrieved he hides it behind his back like he’d forgotten to properly conceal something that was meant to be a surprise.

Or maybe he’d just been wary of gift-wrapping it for reasons that seem very obvious in hindsight. 

Jeremiah doesn’t have to wallow in his curiosity for very long, though, because almost as soon they make it inside of his office Bruce offers a few more words of genuine congratulations and holds the present out to him. 

It’s a Dom Pérignon with a fading label. Although Jeremiah’s knowledge about alcohols is stronger when it concerns whisky, bourbon, or scotch, he knows enough about champagnes to realize that this is bottle must have cost a pretty penny. Either that or Bruce had spent some of his not-extensive free time studying the cellar in his own home, trying to find a suitable bottle of something that he thought Jeremiah might enjoy. In either case he appreciates the gesture, as well as the excuse that it gives him. A bottle of quality scotch didn’t necessarily have to be shared, but a bottle of champagne? Surely it must. 

“Would you like to stay a little longer? Something like this isn’t meant to be drunk alone,” he offers before remembering that Bruce’s car is parked outside, which means that he would eventually be driving himself home. 

“I could stay,” Bruce answers before Jeremiah has the chance to mourn a lost opportunity of more time spent together. “I can call Alfred for a ride home, and we can come back for my car in the morning.”

And Bruce, unfailingly polite as he was, would definitely stop by to say hello when he came all the way back out here to get his car.

“Wonderful,” Jeremiah says. _Absolutely wonderful_. He looks down at the label again to ground himself, eyes tracing along the cursive until he feels slightly calmer. “I don’t have the right type of glassware for this.” His eyes flit up, a teasing smile gracing the corners of his mouth as he asks, “unless you brought champagne flutes along in your trunk as well?”

“I’m afraid that thought didn’t occur to me,” Bruce replies with ease as he slip past Jeremiah, close enough that their shoulders brush, on his way to where Jeremiah’s decanter and glasses are laid out. “So we’ll have to make do without.”

Jeremiah’s so caught up in the closeness, in the humorous smile that Bruce sends in his direction, in the lovestruck way that Bruce makes him feel, that uncorking the bottle and pouring the champagne are nothing but a pleasant blur.

A day such as this deserves a toast, he thinks as he raises his glass a little. 

“To us,” he states. “Together we are going to change things for the better in Gotham. This is only the beginning.” His mind has been flickering over other ideas as of late; one of his notebooks now has a dozen pages of buildings designed with vertical gardens and living walls, architecture that burst with liveliness on the surface just as much as it did in the framework. Breathing new life into the dull greyness of Gotham. He’s rather besotted by the idea of it. 

“To us, and to our beginning,” Bruce chimes with another small smile.

Jeremiah thinks he can physically feel himself fall even deeper into love.

Their glasses clink together delicately. The bubbling liquid inside swirls elegantly at the motion and Jeremiah isn’t able to hold back a slight snicker at the knowledge that the four ounces of alcohol in his glass is likely more expensive than his entire suit.

Bruce raises his eyebrows at him.

“I just find it funny that you didn’t bring the proper glassware, is all,” Jeremiah explains. “You’re usually so put together, and it seems like something that you would go out of your way to do.”

Bruce’s eye dart away briefly, and Jeremiah is almost certain that there’s a little more colour in his cheeks than there had been before.

Adorable.

“Perhaps you weren’t the only one feeling nervous about today,” he offers in explanation, though it’s difficult for Jeremiah to imagine Bruce getting anxious. “I’ll give you a pair of champagne flutes for your birthday so that next time I won’t have to think about bringing them along.”

A pair.

Next time.

“We’ll have many more reasons to celebrate, won’t we?”

They will, of course they will, their partnership won’t just end once the generators go live. There are a multitude of projects that they can work on as a team. This was only their beginning, Bruce had even agreed—

“I know that we will,” Bruce replies with a sincerity that makes it difficult for Jeremiah to stand still. He wants to reach out to him. Wants to hold on to him. Wants to brush his lips against the crown of his head and make promises about undying loyalty and everlasting friendship and true love. “We make a good team, you and I. I look forward to working alongside you even more in the future.”

“I’m looking forward to that as well.”

More than he thinks he could even verbally express.

He takes his first sip of the champagne, finding it crisp and bright on his tongue. A remarkable gift, really.

But it pales in comparison to the gift of another of Bruce’s candid smiles. 

They drink slowly and talk about the next steps Wayne Enterprises will take for the rollout of the generators. Bruce had been very adamant that the first to benefit from clean energy that could be run on pennies a day would be those who actually needed it most. He’d spoken a little about how some board members had scoffed and tried to dig in their heels at the idea of the origin point of such an important project being in The Narrows back when they started working together on the generators. Jeremiah had felt distaste and anger towards them on Bruce’s behalf, because of course Bruce would want to be as altruistic as possible, and of course other members of the Gotham elite would want to benefit from technological advances first, but it’s all settled now, and Bruce is getting exactly what he wants. 

And what Bruce wants, Jeremiah wants.

Jeremiah offers to pour Bruce another glass, and Bruce doesn’t refuse. It’s the first time that he’s had more than a few sips of alcohol in Jeremiah’s presence, which makes the moment feel even more significant. He’d gone through a rough patch some time before meeting Jeremiah, something that he rarely speaks of and that Jeremiah hasn’t underhandedly read gossip articles about, where he’d hung around with a bad crowd and made bad choices and drank far too much.

Jeremiah cannot—would not—fault him for such a common poor coping mechanism, especially considering his own history.

“I want to show you some sketches,” he says, feeling light and perhaps a little giddy at the idea of showing Bruce more of his preliminary work and having even more of Bruce’s insightful comments and admiration bestowed upon him. “Do you know what a green—” He stops abruptly, head turning to face his monitors.

“Is something wrong?” From the corner of his eye he can see that Bruce has turned his attention to the screens as well. Jeremiah is a little too paranoid to tear his eyes away from the monitor to look at him directly. 

“I thought I saw movement.”

They’re both silent for several long moments.

Nothing out of place turns up on any of the screens connected to Jeremiah’s external cameras.

“You get deer out here sometimes,” Bruce eventually prompts, though the serious look that has overtaken his face means that he’s also considering the possibility of other, far more troubling circumstances. “I’ve seen them on the drive in. Maybe it was just an animal.”

“Maybe,” Jeremiah agrees, not wanting to sound too pessimistic, but he still runs his eyes over the screens for a few seconds longer before he lets his gaze fall away. “I suppose I may seem overly suspicious, but that’s just… How I’ve lived my life ever since leaving the circus behind.”

Although Bruce ought to know that well enough by now; sitting inside of Jeremiah’s underground maze of a bunker, swathed in the lights of a dozen monitors which showcased the feeds of dozens of internal and external security cameras. 

“I understand, Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah takes another sip to keep himself from saying something embarrassing such as, ‘you do, and that’s why I like you so very much.’

Bruce idly swirls the last few ounces of his second glass of champagne and Jeremiah is fairly certain that their private celebration is about to be put to an end with a call to Alfred, who will no-doubt reach Jeremiah’s address within half an hour, and then Bruce will bid him goodbye…

He’ll be back in the morning for his car, and he’ll stop to say hello before he leaves again, but…

Jeremiah is brimming with the desire to tell Bruce just how important he’s become; how much Jeremiah appreciates having him in his life. Even if he doesn’t go so far as to say something so conspicuously intimate as ‘I love you’, or even as unmistakably sweet as ‘I like you’, he wants to tell Bruce more than all that he’s said so far because everything that has been previously stated pales in comparison to what Jeremiah feels. What Bruce _makes_ him feel. 

And this moment here; where they’re safe, where they’re alone, where they’re commemorating the incredible work that they’ve accomplished together, feels like the perfect time to open himself up a little more.

“Bruce,” he begins softly, and Bruce’s eyes focus back on him. He resists the urge to lick his lips and clear his throat. “You’re—”

Brilliant. Beyond compare. Kind and generous and clever. The best friend that a man like myself could hope for. I like you, I like you. I love you, I love you. 

“—one of my best friends.”

Bruce blinks slowly, as if he needs more time than usual to process Jeremiah’s words, and then his expression goes unbearably soft.

“Jeremiah,” he starts, and he sounds _happy_. Jeremiah has made him happy. Jeremiah fervently thinks that he would find a way to do all manner of impossible things if it would make Bruce look and sound so carefree all of the time. “You’re one of my best friends, too.”

Something electric shoots up Jeremiah’s spine, and his heart flutters rapidly in his chest. He sets down his glass and steps forward. He’s thought of the half-embrace that Bruce had given him after their first test of the generators often. Thought of the press of Bruce’s side against his own, the weight of Bruce’s arm across his shoulders. He wants, quite ardently, to initiate a similar gesture now. He knows that he would want to even if he wasn’t so incredibly in love.

It’s been years since he’s hugged anyone. The last person had probably been his mother.

He wraps his arms slowly around Bruce, hands tucking against the curve of his back as if to guide him a little bit closer, and he’s honestly surprised when Bruce does slip further into the embrace. Bruce’s chin rests against his shoulder. Bruce’s arms settle around his waist. Bruce is relaxed and happy and Jeremiah wants to give him reasons to stay relaxed and happy.

“The circumstances were far from ideal at the time,” he says with no small amount of humour. He can feel the soft curls of Bruce’s hair against his cheek and he has to resist the urge to inhale the scent of his shampoo. “But I am very glad to have met you, Bruce.”

Bruce’s arms wrap tighter around him.

“Jeremiah,” he starts. Stops. Goes tense. “Jeremiah.” His fingers twitch against Jeremiah’s back. “There are people in the woods.”

“What?”

They break apart, the moment of peace fading into oblivion as their eyes take in the activity on the monitors. There are people outside, just as Bruce had said, and they’re drawing closer. People wearing shredded clothing and leather, people with dark circles painted around their eyes and smiles painted across their mouths. People that Jeremiah would have preferred to have forgotten about entirely.

Jerome’s cult; his Maniax. 

Bruce curses and digs out his phone. “They must have followed us back here.” The device slips from his fingers and clatters to the ground, and he scrambles to pick it back up. “I’m sorry Jeremiah, they’ve been quiet for months and I didn’t think—” He cuts himself off, guilt rolling off of him in palpable waves. “I didn’t think,” he repeats, full of regret. “I should have been more careful. I should have been more alert. I’m so sorry.”

Jeremiah is so unnerved by the crowds assembling that his first instinct is to verbalize what is happening right in front of their faces. “They’re at the main entrance and the exit of the maze.” He feels cold, distant. His mind is spinning into overdrive, but his body is frozen in place. He thinks he might be going into shock. A part of him wants nothing more than to console Bruce, to tell him that Jeremiah doesn’t blame him for this, but the only words he can seem to form are, again, a repetition of what they’re both seeing. “They’re trying to break inside.”

Beside him Bruce becomes even more tense; his fingers pause in the act of dialing and his somber face goes pale. “Jerome escaped from here before, right? But that was someone from inside going out, and with Ecco’s help. Is it possible for someone from outside to break in?”

“I have safety protocols in place.” Jeremiah can’t seem to look away from the screen, from the savage way that Jerome’s followers appear to be trying to either short-circuit or utterly destroy his locks. One of his cameras goes dark; someone had likely shot at it. 

Even if Bruce calls the police right now it’s highly unlikely that they’ll arrive before any of Jeremiah’s primary defense mechanisms are put into action. 

He has safety protocols in place.

And he’d been so very thorough when planning them out.

Despite the terrible situation and the chaos occurring outside he actually feels his initial rush of overwhelming panic begin to abate. His bunker had been designed not only to conceal his location but to also withstand attack and invasion, because he had needed to be one hundred percent certain that he was unquestionably safe. If Jerome’s Maniax had been able to intercept them before they’d gotten inside then the situation would be different, but he and Bruce are secure, and none of the lunatics out there were going to be able to get in here to hurt them. 

The knowledge that the location of his home has spread to the worst kind of people is still incredibly uncomfortable and looking out at the masses who had thought of his brother as a twisted messiah is almost enough to churn his stomach, but he can endure this. 

He knows that he can.

An alarm begins to go off; a warning sound to indicate tampering which he’d set up long before he’d moved all of his belongings inside the of bunker. 

“If someone were to try to force their way inside by, for example, blowing up my front door—” Another of his cameras dies. Bruce makes a pained noise. “—they’d only be able to get as far as down the stairs before finding themselves at a dead-end. I installed a series of doors, you see, in the hallways leading from the staircases. Three sets of them. Once they’re triggered to release from their slots in the ceiling into their defensive positions they’ll stay in place for a minimum of twenty-four hours, longer if I do not specifically overrule the security features. Ecco and I used to have eight-hour check-in periods, the pre-set timeframe was meant to act as a buffer until she or the authorities could get here in case I was unable to contact her right away.”

Only one exterior camera, located right outside of his front door, is left.

He watches a madman stick what he strongly suspects are plastic explosives to his door, watches everyone else start to back away, and he’s so caught up in watching that he almost jumps when Bruce reaches for his hand and squeezes. After taking a moment to gather his wits Jeremiah curls his fingers around Bruce’s in what he hopes is a reassuring manner.

“So we’ll be locked in for a while,” Bruce whispers as they examine the security feed together. The one who’d stuck explosives to Jeremiah’s door is backing away, a spool of wire trailing from his hands. “But we’ll be safe.”

The last exterior camera goes dark. The alarm is accompanied by flashing red lights. One of his doors has been breached.

His lockdown protocol has been activated. 

“We’ll be safe,” he answers with certainty, because if there’s one thing that he is always confident in, it’s his own work. Especially the work that was meant to protect him from his brother. 

He can’t hear the thud of the heavy doors releasing from the ceiling, succinctly cutting he and Bruce off from the rest of the world, but he’s almost sure that he can feel the earth shake and his bones rattle as the lights stop flashing, the steady red glow an indication that the doors have locked into place.

“We’ll be safe,” he promises.

It’s my turn to protect you, he thinks.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone out there is doing okay! My focus is getting kind of difficult to concentrate because stress at work/regarding work is really amping up, so updates may slow down but I'll still be typing away at this whenever I've got time.
> 
> As ever, I hope you enjoy. These two dorks, I love them so much.

A gust of breath rushes out of Bruce’s lungs and his head droops forward as if the weight of the entire world is resting atop his shoulders. Jeremiah is abruptly sure that he’s once again about to apologize for something that he had no control over, so he cuts in before Bruce can even open his mouth. 

“It’s not your fault.”

Bruce’s fingers twitch in his grasp. Jeremiah hopes that he’s not holding on too tight, but he can’t quite bring himself to let go just yet. 

“They are the ones who followed us. They are the ones trying to break in. You are not responsible for their actions, Bruce. And you’re not responsible for mine, either.”

Bruce turns his attention fully on to him and Jeremiah continues in the most assertive voice that he can manage. “You didn’t force me out of my bunker. You didn’t force me onto that stage. I wanted to stop hiding away, and I don’t regret making the decision to be with you today. It was a very important moment for the both of us, and I…” He trails off. Being the center of Bruce’s unflinching attention is a lot to process, even in the midst of an attempted home invasion. “I’d do it again if I had the chance, even if nothing changed.”

“You don’t…” Bruce trails off, and he turns his gaze back to the monitors. The cameras in the stairwells are still working, and he watches as people being to stream inside with furrowed brows and pursed lips. “You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?”

“Of course not.” Though if the truth did help Bruce to feel less self-reproach, then so much the better. “Call Alfred, let him know what’s going on. Let him know that you’re safe.” Jeremiah slips his free hand into his pocket to pull out his own phone. “I’ll call 911. With any luck the GCPD will be able to round everyone up within the hour.”

“An hour isn’t a long time, and there are a lot of them out there,” Bruce continues to look at the screens. Continues to hold Jeremiah’s hand. “What if they have more explosives? What if they can get through the other doors?”

“The vents connected to those hallways were automatically cut off from my air filtration system once the doors came down, just in case anyone—” Jerome. “—had the idea of trying to smoke me out in a literal sense.” Or tried to contaminate his air supply with something lethal. One could never be too careful, after all. “Thus in another minute or so the first wave of intruders are going to find themselves getting sprayed with enough pressurized carbon dioxide to absolutely null the possibility of a fire.” Safety protocols. Very important. Bruce’s gaze finally locks back on to him. “I imagined, back in my youth, that such a thing might be a deterrent for even the most motivated of trespassers, and if they somehow manage to get through the first set of doors, well…” Jeremiah shrugs. “It won’t get any easier for them at the second set.”

Not to mention the unlikelihood that any intruders would be able to find his locked office without a map even if they were, by some incredible miracle, able to breach all of the doors. 

Bruce stares at him for a long moment, the corner of his mouth twitching as if he’s trying to fight back a smile.

“Are you telling me that you booby trapped the entry points to your home?”

“Of course, what do you take me for? An _unimaginative_ rich genius recluse who lives in an underground maze?”

Bruce lets out a startled laugh, bringing his free hand up to his mouth as if in a belated attempt to muffle the sound.

He has such a nice laugh, it’s a pity that the first time Jeremiah gets to hear it is at a time like this. He’ll have more opportunities to make Bruce laugh later, though, in less dire situations.

“It’s another reason why the twenty-four hour minimum is in place. With my air filtration system no longer functioning in those sections I have to rely on natural air currents to get rid of any lingering impurities before the vents leading into those sections open up again. There’s a reason behind everything I do, you know.”

“How pragmatic of you,” Bruce comments, eyes dancing. His fingers begin to uncurl from around Jeremiah’s hand, and Jeremiah misses the warmth of his touch as soon as it’s gone. “I’m going to call Alfred and Selina, and Detective Gordon too, and I’ll let them all know what’s going on and that I’m fine. In here with you I’m probably one of the safest people in Gotham.”

He is. Jeremiah might not be much for fighting or standing up to fear by himself, but fortification and defense were a few of his specialties and this was his territory in absolutely every sense of the word. 

Bruce steps away to make the calls, and before Jeremiah dials emergency services he has the camera feeds from the stairwells continue on without being interrupted by shots of empty corridor or black voids. He can’t make out the expressions of those who are close enough to the CO2 to get blasted, but their body language is certainly remarkable. He can’t help but laugh under his breath—a strange little giggle, but thankfully nowhere near the hysterics he might have been in if this had happened to him four months ago—even though in a perfect world his safeguards would have never needed to be put to use. 

Jeremiah makes quick work of calling for the police; telling the 911 operator the what and where and who brusquely. Then he updates Ecco on the situation, lets her know that the GCPD are on their way, and asks her not to do anything rash—such as try to get here before the police so that she can knock a few of Jerome’s followers around.

He doesn’t tell her that Bruce has been trapped inside with him though, because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle whatever teasing comments are bound to be brought to life due to it, and by the time he’s off the phone with Ecco the doors have been down for nearly ten minutes.

Twenty three hours and fifty minutes to go. 

Bruce still has his own cell pressed to his ear, the soft cast of his face making it obvious that it’s Alfred that he’s talking to. The fond expression is achingly similar to the one he’d had after Jeremiah had told Bruce that he was one of his best friends. 

What had he been about to say right before he’d caught sight of Jerome’s cult on the monitors? Jeremiah is overrun with a mixture of curiosity and anticipation even though the moment is long gone; ground into dust by Jerome from beyond the grave. 

Bruce’s phone clicks shut. He lifts his face and meets Jeremiah’s eyes, and Jeremiah is suddenly aware that he’s just been caught blatantly staring like some kind of lovelorn fool. To quickly shift his gaze away would be an obvious act that he’d like to think is beneath him so instead he keeps his gaze locked on his friend, who is what Jeremiah wants to protect above all the other treasures and secrets hidden inside his home. Even more than their generators. 

Even more than himself.

“The police are on their way,” he murmurs. Bruce isn’t breaking the gaze either. Jeremiah’s not sure if the prolonged eye contact is meant to feel this intimate or if he’s just lucky. “I imagine that every officer in the city is eager to be a part of this roundup.” Even more people privy to the knowledge of where they could find him. Great.

“They’ll probably send in a small unit. Specialized.” Bruce’s eyes drift over to the monitors, eyebrows furrowing. “Less guns, less twitchy fingers, less chance of friendly fire. Better chance of getting as many of these people as possible into custody.” 

Jeremiah’s skin prickles at the thought of it; this mass of people being caught only to eventually end up in Arkham, which had proven itself to be far from inescapable and incorruptible. If just a few of them banded together and managed to make their way out they’d cause more chaos, destroy more lives, kill more people, all in the name of the one who they worshipped even after death.

His dread at the possibility of himself and Bruce having continuous targets on their backs, having to constantly look over their shoulders just in case they were being followed, articulates itself with malicious words which build up in the back of his throat, impatiently waiting to be viciously spat out.

He holds them back.

He wants to be better than Jerome. Better than what Jerome had meant for him to become. The Jeremiah from months ago might have wished harm onto people who wanted to hurt him, he may have even wished death upon them, but that Jeremiah was different. Cold, apathetic, calculating. 

That Jeremiah hadn’t had Bruce.

Holding back the cruel statements is easy, holding back his rightful dubiety is much more difficult. But there’s no point in voicing his skepticism to someone who is just as, if not more, aware of the high possibility of Arkham breakouts and what they could mean on both a city-wide and personal level. 

Bruce has enough to worry about now without Jeremiah forcing that into the forefront of his mind. 

“It doesn’t seem as if they have any more explosives,” Bruce finally speaks up after a lengthy silence. His voice is softer than what Jeremiah is used to hearing, and his eyes are still glued to the monitors. “Otherwise I suspect they would have used it by now. It looks as if someone did think to bring along a cutting torch, though.”

“A cutting torch?” Jeremiah finally looks back to the screen and at the person in protective equipment lumbering near his first door. “What kind of cutting torch?”

“If I had to hazard a guess I would say it’s oxy-acetylene.”

Messy, but powerful. Powerful enough to cut through materials up to two feet thick.

“Damn.” He’s still not particularly worried, because in the amount of time it will take to cut a hole large enough for someone to get through it’s likely the police will have arrived, and even if it takes a while for all of these lunatics to get rounded up whoever is cutting into his door isn’t aware that a few measly meters beyond the first door is _another door_ that would have to be cut through. Still, he has a feeling that only in Gotham would someone bring an oxy-acetylene torch to a home invasion. Whoever it was was probably a _bank robber_ by trade.

When he inevitably has to replace his first door after this he’ll make it a mixture of aluminum and steel. Maybe he’ll switch out the third door too, so that each new barrier had a different strength that intruders would likely be unprepared for…

Bruce’s shoulder bumps against his, abruptly putting a pause on Jeremiah’s considerations for refortification.

He had moved so quietly that Jeremiah hadn’t noticed him getting closer until Bruce had purposefully nudged at him. Had he really been so deeply lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed Bruce, who he was usually so fixated on, coming towards him? 

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“Just trying to view this as a learning experience.” And not what could have been a truly devastating attack had he been any less paranoid about Jerome and the lengths he might go to in order to get his hands on him. Jeremiah rolls his shoulders back, feeling strangely giddy when he discovers that Bruce is still close enough that their shoulders brush together at his movement. “What do you suppose the likelihood of someone bringing both an oxy-acetylene torch and a plasma cutter to a home invasion is?”

“I hope we don’t ever have to test those odds.”

We.

Such a simple word. Such a powerful word.

Jeremiah’s throat feels tight. A jumble of words flashes in his mind. He wants to hold Bruce’s hand again. 

“The Maniax near the top of the stairwell are reacting to something,” Bruce observes before Jeremiah can say or do anything to embarrass himself. “Sirens, maybe?”

“If so, they’re faster than I thought they would be.”

Then again it wasn’t exactly difficult to imagine that Bruce’s presence here might have spurred an accelerated response time. 

It’s nearly impossible to take his eyes off the screen once the confrontation begins. Though he no longer has a view of the outside it is all too easy to imagine the force that the Maniax are now attempting to defend themselves against, and Jeremiah is certain that this will not be an easy win for the GCPD. Several cult members with firearms rush out to keep the doorway secure, and there’s nothing that Jeremiah or Bruce can do to bring the struggle to an earlier end.

Nothing that they can do but watch.

The first fifteen minutes is drawn out, with the Maniax still inside the stairwell only making the occasional shot outside to ward off the police, and the person with the cutting torch making slow but undeniable progress on the first door.

Then a smoking canister is thrown into the stairwell, haphazardly ricocheting off of walls and bodies. Someone manages to catch it and throw it back outside, but another is thrown in. And then another. A few of the Maniax rush out, weapons discarded so that their hands are free to cover their noses and mouths.

The plumes of grey vapor build up easily with no air circulation except for that offered by the broken door above. One by one the Maniax who did not flee to the open air of the outdoors begin to drop, until finally even the one wielding the cutting torch is down for the count.

“Huh.”

That was almost… Anticlimactic. 

“I imagine Mister Fox was to thank for that tactic,” Bruce muses as the stairwell cameras go foggy, the smoke too thick now for them to make out any movement. Bruce’s phone begins to ring, and he takes a brief look at caller ID before flipping it open with a greeting of, “Detective Gordon.”

Then Jeremiah’s own phone begins to vibrate. He doesn’t bother to look at who’s calling because only three people know his number, and one of them is standing right beside him talking to another. 

Ecco is fine, as expected, if not slightly out of breath. She’d caught a few Maniax attempting to flee capture by escaping into the woods early on and had dragged their bodies back towards one of the several police vans that lined the road leading to Jeremiah’s front door.

“Detective Gordon told me that he’d like you to send him all the security footage that you can once you’re free to do so,” she tells him after making several unsubtle inquiries about his own wellbeing. “Speaking of the good Detective,” she continues lightly, “I’m sure you’ll never guess who he’s talking to right now.”

Jeremiah casts a glance at Bruce. The dour look on his face due to whatever it is that Gordon is saying to him makes Jeremiah wish even more fervently that this hadn’t happened, that he’d been left alone, that he’d been able to enjoy the end of this momentous day with Bruce in peace.

“Why would I guess when I am so closely acquainted with the facts?”

Ecco is silent for a long moment and then, with enough sincerity in her tone to make Jeremiah’s cheeks begin to feel warm, she says, “Good luck, boss.”

Good luck, indeed. 

Twenty-two and a half hours to go. The most time Jeremiah has ever spent with Bruce was maybe up to five hours during some of their more enthusiastic work sessions. And those were, of course, before Jeremiah had fully realized that what he felt for Bruce exceeded friendship. The conflict is over, for now, and Jeremiah can trust Ecco to look after his best interests while he is barricaded inside, but…

Twenty-two and a half hours.

He thinks he might need more than luck to keep from making a fool of himself. 

“Thank you, Ecco. I believe you will find the necessary components for a substitute door in my third storage locker, which should tide me over until I can get a better look at what these miscreants did to my doorstep. If you would be so kind as to have that set up for me? I rather doubt that a few police lines will keep more riffraff from trying to break in.”

“I’ll get right on it. It sounds like Detective Gordon is coordinating a team to keep watch on both entrances until the bunker has been properly secured. Nothing’s going to manage to break in to your love nest.”

“Ecco,” he hisses, and she laughs under her breath.

“Keep in touch boss. Call if you need anything.”

“I will,” he says, somewhat curt, but his cheeks are burning and if Bruce were to look over and ask what it is that Jeremiah’s getting embarrassed about— “Thank you.”

The connection cuts off and Jeremiah rests a cool hand against one of his cheeks.

To help calm himself down he begins going through the recorded footage—evidence that will hopefully help put at least some of the people who’d come after him into the far more difficult to escape Blackgate as opposed to Arkham—and distantly he registers Bruce’s voice going softer as he once again speaks to Alfred.

Once Jeremiah is done tracking down every single piece of footage that includes his would-be-intruders, once Bruce has assuaged his guardian’s concern, what were they to do for more than twenty-two hours?

Talk, he tells himself firmly, before any other thought can pop into his mind and wreak havoc. We’re going to talk about the generators, and maybe about other projects, and then we’ll sleep, and then come morning we’ll… His thoughts trail off as a previously irrelevant piece of information suddenly becomes relevant.

He’d never planned to have guests over, ever. Even Ecco didn’t keep many of her own things here because she was meant to be his eyes and ears on the outside, not stuck in here with him.

He only has one bedroom. Which means he only has—


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little late, but it's still the soft, trope-y content that we all deserve. Hope you all are doing well out there. <3

One bed.

The thought flashes through his mind, somehow just as disorienting and dizzying as a strobe light.

He tries not to linger on the fact, instead giving his common sense an opportunity to return as well as embracing his previously non-existent chivalrous nature. He’s gotten so wrapped up in projects that he’s fallen asleep at his desk more than once—he even has a spare blanket stored away in his office in case of late-night-drafting sessions—and he wouldn’t dream of forcing Bruce to sleep on his cold concrete slab of a floor. 

He’ll offer Bruce the bed, of course, and he’ll deal with one short night of discomfort. It’s the proper thing to do.

Which means that Bruce will be in his bed.

In his bed. Tucked in his sheets. Sheltered and warm, guarded by both Jeremiah’s ingenuity and Jeremiah himself. Nothing could harm him, Jeremiah wouldn’t allow it. He’d sleep, safer than anyone in Gotham had ever been, the scent of him sinking into Jeremiah’s pillows—

Jeremiah forces his thoughts to halt, though it is such a pleasant thing to think about, before he can get too carried away. 

It feels like it would be crossing a line for his musings about Bruce to take such an intimate turn, while _Bruce was in the same room as him_ , no less. To think about holding hands, and running fingers through hair, and occasionally even kissing were one thing, but this was surely a step beyond those sorts of saccharine fantasies. 

And thinking about it will only make him crave more, even though Bruce has given him so much already. His trust, understanding, kindness, friendship; Bruce has freely offered these spectacular things and Jeremiah deeply cherishes them all while reciprocating as much as he is able. Bruce is his friend, and even though Jeremiah occasionally desperately wants to kiss him he also never wants to do anything, ever, that would make Bruce uncomfortable. 

Which means he really ought to stop thinking about what Bruce looks like when he sleeps.

“Do you have any idea of what to do for twenty-two hours?”

Jeremiah jerks a bit, startled once again by Bruce’s silent approach. He casts a quick glance over at him before his eyes studiously linger on various chalk outlines, plans, and papers that he has pinned to his walls.

Twenty-two hours by himself was nothing when he had inspiration and a cup of strong coffee. Twenty-two hours _not_ by himself was unheard of.

He’s on the verge of making a comment about beginning to plan a new, better version of Arkham Asylum, one that could be staffed properly and actually function the way that it was meant to—the way Bruce that sometimes spoke about during the rare moments where he mentioned his mother and what she had wanted Arkham to become, a place that actually helped people and didn’t just make them worse before they escaped—but again, he stops himself from mentioning how unsafe and disreputable the place actually is.

Bringing up Arkham is bound to draw any remaining positive feelings about their announcement right out of Bruce and give him something to unhappily brood over. 

Jeremiah does store the thought away for later, though. He had no say in the employees or their practice, unfortunately, but if there was anything he could do to improve the infrastructure… Well, that was a project that he could feel a great amount of personal investment in.

The silence stretches on for several beats too long, and his mind races for an answer that won’t lower Bruce’s mood. 

“I’m afraid I don’t have any board games,” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth. He’d be disappointed in the mindless nature of his answer, except he hears Bruce chuckle under his breath in response to it. Funny how making the one you love laugh could cause you to feel self-assured when only a moment ago you’d felt like knocking your head against a wall for your foolishness. “I do have a deck of cards somewhere. Though I must inform you that the only game I’ve played over the past several years is, as you might have suspected, solitaire.”

“You’ve never built a card tower?”

Jeremiah huffs out a soft laugh, “I don’t know if that can be considered a game,” —bearing in mind not only his academic interests, but his rather substantial ego when it came to his work even when he’d still been in school— “but yes, I have.”

Bruce hums lowly, shifting beside Jeremiah so that their shoulders brush again.

Jeremiah distantly wonders how he might react if Jeremiah casually slung an arm over his shoulders. It didn’t have to be a romantic act, just the sort of platonic closeness that Bruce tended to be the one initiating. It didn’t have to lead into anything new or amorous. Jeremiah enjoys having Bruce close. It’s just another fact of life, now. 

“I could teach you how to play rummy or poker.”

Jeremiah glances at him, a smile pulling at his lips. “And risk going up against your poker face?”

Bruce shrugs, head lazily tilting to the side as if to say, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Even though they’ve never played cards before Jeremiah has a gut instinct that Bruce Wayne, media darling, is an absolute shark. And he doesn’t quite like the idea of playing a game where Bruce will purposefully keep his face blank. He likes catching glimpses of emotion filtering over his features.

He loves it, even.

“Rummy,” Jeremiah says decisively. 

“Rummy it is,” Bruce agrees, tone serious but eyes glimmering with mirth. He takes off his suit jacket and slings it over the back of the extra chair situated across from Jeremiah’s at the desk.

He looks at home, here.

A familiar longing fills up Jeremiah’s chest.

“I’ll find that deck.” 

He excuses himself from his office, taking a moment to glance over his shoulder once before he goes.

Bruce looks like he belongs here, where Jeremiah’s interests and personality are apparent with every glance around the room. It makes Jeremiah wonder if he looks as though he would belong in Bruce’s space, in the places where Bruce spends his free time.

He wishes he knew. 

He rifles through a storage closet for a few minutes before he finds the deck, and before he goes back to his office he makes a stop at his small kitchenette. 

The time for champagne was sadly over, but their celebration could continue on in a more understated fashion with coffee and cards. After several minutes he finds himself pouring from his French press into two mismatched mugs, then stirring a few spoons of sugar into both. He slips the deck of cards into his pocket to free up his hands and, with a steadying breath, makes his way back towards his office.

Bruce is on the phone again when he arrives, a friendly ghost of a smile highlighting his features, his cheeks accentuated with a soft overlay of pink. 

“—I’ll take it into consideration,” he says, his dry tone at odds with the look on his face. “Thank you for the advice, Selina.”

Selina is to Bruce what Ecco is to Jeremiah, more or less. A years-long companion. A trusted confidante. 

Jeremiah wonders what she said to Bruce to make him blush. 

The door closes behind Jeremiah with an audible rush of air, and Bruce’s eyes quickly dart over to him.

“I’ll talk to you later. Take care.” He closes his phone and sets it aside on Jeremiah’s desk, face down. It’s a sweet little gesture that he’d taken to once they’d begun to spend longer stretches of time working together. When he wasn’t expecting any further calls and wasn’t expecting any more need to make calls he blatantly let Jeremiah know that he had his full attention; a sign of respect and attentiveness. 

It made Jeremiah feel important in a way he never really had before, back when Bruce first started setting his phone aside so that he could focus on their tasks with zero distractions. Bruce wasn’t even the sort of person to start mindlessly scrolling through social media when he became bored, but for him to be so up front about how much his time with Jeremiah meant to him—that he wanted it to be clear that his attention wasn’t drifting—was… Well.

It was just another of the multitude of reasons why Jeremiah had started falling in love with him, wasn’t it? A significant point on a vast list of significant points. 

Jeremiah has Bruce’s full attention.

It’s nerve-wracking but invigorating. His heart is pounding in his chest in a well-known way, and as he walks forward he wonders whether Bruce has ever felt anything similar whenever Jeremiah focused all of his attention on him. 

He hopes so. He hopes that he’s made Bruce feel just as important and significant as Bruce has made him feel, if not even more so. He wonders if Bruce has any idea that, to Jeremiah, he’s the most important person in the world. 

The idea of telling him outright makes him feel tongue-tied; inarticulate in the worst way.

“I made coffee,” he says, though it’s obvious, as he offers Bruce a mug. It was all of the little things that Bruce did adding up together that made Jeremiah feel important. Jeremiah has a few of his own little things, too, that thankfully do not involve blunt declarations. “Black, two sugars, right?”

Like memorizing the way that Bruce takes his coffee.

“You know me so well,” Bruce says as he takes the mug, cradling it in his hands and bringing it up towards his face. He inhales the steam and sighs in contentment even before taking his first sip. Jeremiah wishes that he could kiss each of his closed eyelids. “You always make the best coffee.” Bruce’s eyes flutter half open, a secretive smile playing at the edge of his lips. “Don’t tell Alfred I said that, though.”

“I would make you coffee every day,” slips out of Jeremiah’s mouth, soft and instinctive, and he tries to downplay the genuine yearning evident in his statement by frantically downing a third of his own coffee in one go.

With his mind preoccupied with alarm that he’d said such a thing out loud he doesn’t notice the way Bruce averts his eyes by looking down at his mug, or the way his smile shifts into something wistful. 

Once Jeremiah settles down to what has become his baseline state of earnest pining and discomposure he takes the deck of cards from his pocket and holds them out, wordless only because there are too many things that he desires to say and they all seem to block each other out.

“We can play open handed the first time,” Bruce suggests as he takes the deck of cards and sinks down into the extra chair—it’s his own personal chair, really, since Jeremiah had only brought it in when Bruce started staying for longer stretches of time—across from Jeremiah’s desk. He looks like he belongs here and it’s probably embarrassing how much that means to Jeremiah, though he doesn’t feel at all bothered by it. “It’ll be easier to explain that way, though I’m sure you’ll catch on quickly.”

Bruce begins to shuffle the cards as Jeremiah takes a seat across from him, and Jeremiah finds it impossible to not watch his hands.

He wonders if all people who find themselves in love become enamored by every little detail of the person who commands their heart. 

“The objective of rummy,” Bruce begins once he’s done shuffling, tapping the cards lightly against the table to even the deck out, “is to put your cards into two different type of combinations. There are runs, which are a sequence of three or more cards of the same suit, and sets, which are three or four cards of the same rank. When we start putting down our sets and runs we’ll place them face up so that we can each see which cards are no longer in play.” 

Bruce deals out the cards, ten each, then places the undealt cards between them. “This is the stock pile; at the start of your turn you have the choice of either picking a card up from here or—” He flips the top card over from the stock pile and sets it down right beside it. “—from the discard pile. The discard pile is laid out so that we can see each of the cards in the order that they were discarded. If you do pick up from the discard pile you have to bring every card that was discarded after the one that you want into your hand.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“Good.” Bruce lays his hand out on the desk before them and Jeremiah belatedly mirrors the gesture. “Since I dealt you’ll be the first the draw. It looks as though neither of us really have much to build upon right now. At the beginning it’s all luck of the draw, but once we start bringing cards that we can pair up into our hand there’s a little more strategy involved.”

Jeremiah takes the first card from the top of the stock pile and flips it over.

A king of diamonds to go alongside his king of spades.

“Almost to a set already,” Bruce says, sounding pleased that Jeremiah had managed to pick up something useful on his first draw. “Since you don’t have any other cards to pair up what you discard doesn’t really matter, so choose whatever you like.”

Jeremiah looks at the cards laid out before him, then glances back over Bruce’s.

“So if I, for example, discarded an eight you could pick that up?”

Bruce’s lip twitch in a smile. Jeremiah already feels like he’s won something and the game has only just begun. 

“I could. I wouldn’t want to make it so obvious that I’m trying to collect eights, though, considering that I currently only have one in my hand and wouldn’t be able to play a set right away. If you pick up eights later you won’t discard them if you know those are what I’m trying to get, and then I’ll be holding onto cards for no reason. It would be better for me to wait until I had at least two and even then I would have to consider whether picking up all of the ensuing cards would be worth it.”

“Right,” Jeremiah says.

His discards his eight of hearts anyway.

Bruce laughs again, soft and under his breath. A barely-there sound that makes Jeremiah feel remarkably alive. 

Jeremiah knows that, now that he’s started, he’s never going to want to stop making Bruce laugh. 

“Is this a form of self-sabotage?”

“This is a learning experience. I may as well make mistakes now.” Jeremiah attempts to school his face into something serious, but he can feel his own lips stretching into a smile. He can’t not smile at Bruce. It’s impossible. “Next time I won’t.”

“Won’t what, make mistakes?”

“Of course,” he replies. His tone is borderline arrogant, the sort of voice he’d used when Detectives Gordon and Bullock first arrived in his home, and he’d been so sure that he knew better than them.

But he hadn’t been smiling, back then. He hadn’t meant the tone as a joke, back then.

He hadn’t had Bruce as a friend, back then.

Bruce rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling, and he reaches out to take the eight of hearts from the discard pile before discarding the ace of spades. 

“Your turn.”

It’s not even well into the evening yet, nightfall is still hours away, and the thoughts that had gotten him all tied up in a knot fifteen minutes ago seem irrelevant in the present moment as he and Bruce pick up and discard.

He won’t even think about it until Bruce looks as if he’s ready to drift off, however many hours from now that ends up being. He’ll offer it casually. Perhaps he won’t even mention that it’s his bed, because Bruce seems like the sort of person who would insist that he take the floor even though he is Jeremiah’s most-important-person and thus deserves comfort. 

Bruce is also the sort of person who will probably be able to figure it out, though, even if he’s half asleep when Jeremiah leads him towards the bunker’s only bedroom.

It is sparsely decorated and does little to reflect his interests and personality—his office is where it is easy to find glimpses of him: in the worn leather of his chair and the setup of his desk and monitors and 3D models, in the carefully sketched drafts and the hand-written equations and the labyrinths that line his walls—but the few personal items he does have in there—namely, his clothes—will make it obvious that it is not a spare room.

He’ll just have to hope that Bruce is too tired to take much notice of his surroundings.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the lovely comments! I don't always have the energy to respond to them, but they really do keep me going and give me something to smile about. :)

If Jeremiah had contemplated months ago how he might handle the aftermath of an attempted home invasion by the cult who’d revered his mad brother, it certainly would not have been anything like this. He imagines that, had something like this happened when Jerome broke out of Arkham and killed their uncle, he’d be agonizing over every move that had been made and harshly critiquing every decision that had led to the terrible moment where his front door was breached. He would want to hide even further away. He would limit his exposure even to Ecco just to be sure that he was safe.

It would have been a sad existence, he thinks. 

What would make it even sadder was that he’d believe secluding himself even further was right; that it was a better course of action than getting the authorities involved and revealing himself. He would have no idea what he was missing out on. He’d be alone, but so _accustomed_ to being alone that he wouldn’t realize how lonely he was becoming. He’d scrutinize the emptiness inside of himself and he’d try to fill the void with plans and schemes and designs, but there would always be something missing and he would never truly realize what it was. 

If this had happened months ago he’d be consumed by the need to build his walls up even higher, to reinforce them, to cut even more ties to the outside world because those connections only made him weak and the more detached he was the stronger he would be.

Yet here in the present, and as he sips on the last dredges of his coffee and sorts through his cards, he feels a remarkable lack of overwhelming hysteria. He is not entirely calm, and there is a lingering unease because an actual cult had followed him and Bruce to his home, but…

Bruce is safe. He is safe. Ecco is safe.

Bruce is here with him, and even though Jeremiah hates that he’d become involved in this he’s also happy that he isn’t stuck in here alone.

He doesn’t think he would be able to bear it very gracefully, if he were alone right now. He’d probably phone Bruce and force him to stay on the line for hours, even if they had nothing to say to each other, just so in need of that _connection._ And Bruce would absolutely let him get away with it, too. They’d be in each other’s ears, present even when they weren’t speaking, the soft hush of their breath a balm upon the ache of lingering anxieties and fears.

Bruce lays down another set, then discards the final card in his hand. When he glances up there’s something playfully challenging in his eyes, and Jeremiah knows without even having to wait for them to tally their scores that Bruce has won this round. 

They’re one for one, and he honestly doesn’t know who will win their tiebreaking match.

He’d never realized that not knowing whether you would win or lose could be exciting instead of dreadful. Of course, he’d always thought of winning and losing as something that involved high stakes. Peace or pain. Life or death.

Lies that would help him, or truths that would hinder him.

His thoughts continue to focus on the distant and not-so-distant past as he gathers the cards into his hands and begins to slowly shuffle them, mind drifting.

Years ago—and months ago—he’d been scared of Jerome, but part of that fear had always been because he suspected that the falsifications that had spilled too-easily from his mouth when they were children would get him into trouble someday. He’d feared Jerome and the possibility of retribution, but he had never felt sorry for what he had done. Jeremiah had never felt apologetic for what his lies must have cost Jerome.

Not until it was far too late.

He’s sure that he is, at the very least, on his way to becoming a better person. Ecco is sure that he’s become a happier person. 

To Bruce, who had known him for only a handful of months but who had gotten so close so fast, did he seem different at all?

His hands go still. He keeps his eyes focused on the cards.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

There’s a note in Bruce’s voice that Jeremiah knows represents the beginnings of concern. If he looked up right now he’s sure that Bruce’s keen eyes would be intently sweeping over his face, ever watchful for the slightest sign of discomfort.

If he looked up right now he’s not sure he’d be able to say anything, except for maybe the thing that he longs to say most of all. 

He wonders, briefly and apprehensively, how Bruce might look at him then. How his expression might change. How his eyes might catch the light. How his lips might pull into a smile—

“Jeremiah?”

—but that is not what Jeremiah should tell him. At least not now; with Bruce trapped inside with him and no option to go away so that he was able—if he needed—to process the significance of Jeremiah’s feelings without Jeremiah’s presence looming over him in a completely unsubtle fashion. 

Maybe someday, but not now.

He lays the cards down on the desk in front of him and takes a fortifying breath. To ask if he’s become a better person seems like a loaded question, one that might make Bruce uncomfortable to answer, or one that could ruin the relaxed atmosphere between them. It’s better not to ask such a thing so directly.

“In the time that we’ve known each other… Do you think that I’ve changed?”

He wants to know almost as badly as he wants to look into Bruce’s eyes.

Bruce is quiet for a few moments; undergoing a still and thoughtful contemplation before he speaks, as if he wants to carefully weigh every word before saying it.

“You’re more open now,” he concludes before the silence can go on for too long. “You seemed reserved at first. So focused on your tasks and serious. It’s not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong, but I must admit that I was happy when you became a little more candid when I was around, and when you invited me to stay and help with what I could. Neither of us are particularly extroverted, but I think we’ve both made progress towards that end, at least in regard to each other.”

Jeremiah glances up, catches sight of Bruce’s soft smile, glances down.

“Nowadays you allow yourself to show how passionate you are about our work and I… I like it when you get excited about what we’re doing. Seeing how spirited you are fuels my own desire to work hard; it’s as if we’ve formed our own personal positive feedback loop. We’re a good team, you and I.”

Jeremiah is sure that even the tips of his ears have gone red.

“We are,” he somehow manages to agree as he takes the cards back in his hands. “And seeing how passionate you are about our work… It does the same for me. Makes me more eager, I mean. We are quite well matched, in that sense.”

“Yes,” Bruce agrees warmly. 

Jeremiah feels so full of love, he’s not sure how there’s room for anything else.

He finishes shuffling the deck and deals out the cards, finally able to look up at Bruce again once he sets the stock pile between them and flips over the top card.

He wins. Somehow. Even though his attention keeps drifting towards the most important thing in the bunker, if not the most important thing on Earth.

“Want to play another round,” Bruce asks as he piles his cards together, and Jeremiah nods.

It’s not as if they don’t have time.

“Perhaps if we begin to get sick of rummy we could build a card tower,” Bruce muses, “though I imagine we wouldn’t be able to do anything too impressive with only one deck.”

“Maybe some other time,” Jeremiah agrees, already thrilled at the idea of spending more leisurely time with Bruce because they both wanted to spend time together outside of work, and not merely because they were both locked inside with no one but each other for company. “Maybe at the manor,” he adds, because he wants to walk into the place that Bruce has called home, and see Bruce in the environment where he’s most comfortable, and—

—and see if he feels like he has a place there, too, just as Bruce has a place here. 

Bruce glances up at him so quickly that Jeremiah is sure that if he’d blinked he would have missed the movement entirely.

“We could do that,” Bruce says in a rush, sounding a little out of breath. “Absolutely. I would have invited you over before, but I didn’t want to push, and now, well, I had worried that this situation might have made you change your mind about wanting to step out entirely.”

Jeremiah twists his hands together under the table, too worked up to stay entirely still.

He thinks this might be what _giddiness_ feels like.

Bruce would have invited him over already, if he weren’t so very cautious.

Jeremiah would have told him how he felt days—if not weeks—ago, if he weren’t so very cautious.

Perhaps, once this situation was behind them, they could afford to become a little more impulsive around one another. 

“It is unfortunate that this had to happen at all.” Keeping his voice level takes a surprising amount of effort. “But all things considered it could have turned out much worse. My over-preparedness and paranoia have served me well.”

“Would you feel safe at the manor?” Bruce’s eyes scrutinize his face, looking for any sign of discomfort. “Our security measures are nothing like yours.”

I feel safe wherever you are, the words lay heavily on Jeremiah’s tongue.

He nods instead.

“It could be a short visit to start,” Bruce offers, implying that there will be more visits after and making Jeremiah’s heart thrum firmly in his chest. “I could show you around, and maybe—maybe you’d feel comfortable staying for an early dinner? I could make sure you were home before dark. Ecco could come along, too.”

“I’d like that, a lot.”

“Great,” Bruce says, sounding a little dazed, as if he’d expected Jeremiah to list off more caveats needed to make a visit happen. “I’d like that, too.”

Jeremiah can’t help but smile.

So cute.

Bruce begins to shuffle the cards, but the sound of a ringtone—Jeremiah’s—has him coming to a halt. Jeremiah digs his phone out of his pocket and answers.

It’s Ecco letting him know that while she had brought over the components of the replacement door there were unfortunately some structural problems left behind by the explosives that would render it all but useless. 

“I contacted the head of the team that you hired back when you were still in the construction phase, he’ll be here in the morning to take a look. The sooner he gets involved the sooner you’ll have a functioning front door again. And, as I said before, there’s going to be a team watching both entrances until you’re fully secure. The both of you are perfectly safe.”

“Thank you Ecco,” Jeremiah says gratefully. Then, because he cannot help but remember that Ecco usually doesn’t have so much faith in other people, he adds, “You’re planning on staying up all night keeping watch, aren’t you?”

“Of course not,” she answers smoothly, “we’re going to switch off throughout the night.”

“We?” He repeats, slightly bewildered. Ecco was rarely a team player, unless he was involved. “Who’s we?”

“I met a friend of Bruce. Selina. We’ve been talking.” The tone of her voice takes on a curious lit, as if she’s pleased about something.

“About what?”

“This and that,” she replies unhelpfully. “Apparently she took down one of Jerome’s followers by wrapping a whip around their neck. I wonder if all of Bruce’s connections are this fun.” She pauses, and Jeremiah can barely make out her murmuring something as if she’d pressed her phone to her shoulder to help mute her voice. “In any case, it’s just about dusk out here and we’re going to do another sweep of the woods before we completely lose the daylight. I won’t call again unless an urgent situation emerges, which is unlikely considering how many uniforms are lingering around, but I wanted to check in. You’re alright?”

“I’m fine,” he answers, unable to keep the fond note out of his tone.

“Excellent. Good night, Jeremiah.”

“Good night Ecco.”

The call ends and his attention, of course, turns back to Bruce.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like some domesticity with your pining. :) Also I upped the final chapter count because I'm pretty sure I'll need it; I think the chapters are getting a little shorter than they were at the start, but it'll all even out in the end.
> 
> As always, I am so happy that you guys are enjoying this! Your comments bring me much joy (and motivation). <3

The cards have been put away, the office has been left behind, and inside of the small kitchenette that Jeremiah had never considered might need to be big enough for two people to be doing prep work at the same time he and Bruce are side by side, shoulders and arms and elbows constantly brushing as Bruce chops vegetables while Jeremiah stirs minced garlic into a pan of olive oil.

They work well together in every other way so of course it is not at all surprising that they are just as effective when they pair up in the kitchen. Still, Jeremiah thinks as he eyes the pasta sitting in a pot of boiling water, there was something very pleasingly domestic about this. Something easy and natural, even though the space is cramped because when he’d designed this room years ago he had assumed that he would always be cooking alone. 

And, if he were to be completely honest, he enjoys how close they stand together as they work in tandem. It feels comfortable, much like the closeness that they often entered into while working on the generators. Familiar. 

Homey. 

“Excuse me,” Bruce softly intones, and Jeremiah obligingly leans back so that he can add the cut vegetables into the saucepan with the garlic and oil. “Where did you put the salt?”

“It’s still on the counter,” Jeremiah tells him, eyes flicking briefly to where he’d placed it after salting the water, “hidden behind my jar of farfalle.”

Bruce hums and moves the glass jar of pasta aside, then he takes a generous pinch of salt between his fingers and wordlessly stretches his hand out into Jeremiah’s workspace to sprinkle it into the pan. 

“It smells good,” he says as his hand retreats. “I bet it’s going to taste amazing.”

“Everything that we do together ends up being amazing,” Jeremiah tells him, humour lacing the edges of his earnest statement. “And it’s difficult to mess up olive oil and garlic.” He gives the vegetables a stir and eyes the pot of boiling water again. “Pass me the butter, would you?”

Bruce turns away, the warmth of him leaving Jeremiah’s side for just a second, and then he passes the butter dish into Jeremiah’s waiting hand.

“Thank you.” He adds a generous few tablespoon’s worth, mixing it in and watching it melt. “Would you pass me—thank you.” He says, reaching for the ladle that Bruce had offered out to him before he could even finish asking. He adds a ladle of the pasta water into the saucepan before passing the handle off to Bruce. “And now the—yes,” he laughs softly and takes the spider skimmer from Bruce’s other hand.

He transfers the almost-cooked pasta into the saucepan to finish off, stirring all the components together until the farfalle is coated and glossy.

They’ve eaten together before. Or at least Bruce has occasionally brought small food items along with him with the intention of sharing, and Jeremiah always has something on hand to tide them both over when their work sessions go on for an unexpected amount of time, not to mention the many cups of coffee they’d drunk companionably while they were hard at work. This will be the first time they’re eating an actual meal together, though. And it’s one that they made together, no less.

Jeremiah hopes that they can do this again sometime soon. Perhaps they could make it into a weekly routine; a kind of celebration of the end of the work-week in the same way that other young adults might commemorate by going to the cinema, or out for drinks, or to a club.

He can feel the way Bruce shifts closer, standing right behind him, peering over his shoulder as their work nearly reaches completion. 

Jeremiah wants to bring a spoon of sauce up to his mouth to have him try it, wants—

Actually, there was nothing strange about that at all. It was common sense, really, to test for seasoning before you actually plated anything. 

“Here.” He scoops up some sauce into a spoon and with one hand protectively hovering underneath it in case of a spill he turns to present it to Bruce just a hairsbreadth shy of his mouth. “Have a taste.”

Bruce does so without a need for any further prompting, lips parting as he leans in. He hums thoughtfully while the tip of the spoon rests in his mouth, lashes fluttering as his eyes close, and Jeremiah’s heart feels as though it’s in his throat.

“A little more pepper,” Bruce muses as he leans back, licking his lips idly as he goes searching for the pepper mill, unaware that he is the most ethereal being on the planet. “And the parmesan and that, my dear friend, is dinner.” He turns with the pepper mill, flashing Jeremiah a smile.

_My dear friend._

Jeremiah has no words, really.

He adds the pepper while Bruce digs out a pair of bowls, and with just another minute’s work he’s getting the saucepan out of the way while Bruce adds the parmesan. Jeremiah grabs a pair of forks from his cutlery drawer and hands one to Bruce as Bruce holds a bowl out to him.

They stand across from each other, neither of them making a move to sit down at the— admittedly limited—counter space.

“It looks great,” Bruce says, preparing his first forkful. He raises it, as if in a salute, and flashes another smile as he chimes, “cheers.”

Jeremiah mimics the motion, because he can’t not, not when Bruce is so sweet and they’re being so domestic and this whole situation feels perfectly artless and informal. 

Bruce sighs happily at the first bite and quickly takes another. Jeremiah feasts upon the sight of him reveling in obvious satisfaction even more so than he feasts upon the fruits of their labour. 

He could make the kitchenette bigger, he muses in the back of his mind. Take down one wall and put up a few more, turn the path of the maze next door into a set of dead-ends… 

Bring in an actual table to eat at instead of relying upon a small patch of countertop, add a few chairs instead of his lone stool, wire up some soft lighting, maybe even throw a splash of colour onto his otherwise grey walls either through paint or artwork. He could turn this utterly utilitarian space into something more comfortable to replicate the feeling that fluttered in Jeremiah’s chest as he and Bruce worked alongside each other; easily drifting into each other’s space, brushing together and not feeling the need to apologize for it, sharing glances and smiles and other remarkably precious things. 

“We should do this more often,” he suggests between his own bites. 

Please, please, please.

“I’d love to.” 

Spending hours of leisurely time together. Planning an outing to Wayne Manor. Cooking dinner side by side. Making arrangements to cook together again. Jeremiah is sure that all of these things would have naturally come to pass, but he wonders how long it might have taken them to get to these stages if they hadn’t gotten locked in together.

Perhaps there would have been an invitation to Wayne Manor before Bruce left for the evening. Perhaps in a few days he and Jeremiah would have spent time together without any work taking place. Perhaps in a week or two Bruce would have suggested some sort of card game.

Perhaps it would have taken even longer than that.

It has all accelerated now; so many things that Jeremiah already holds dear and thinks fondly of coming to pass over the course of several hours. It makes him wonder what else may happen as their time locked inside gradually works its way towards being one fourth completed. He has no idea what else _could_ happen, since he’d never expected or planned for something like this—entering his lockdown protocol accompanied by someone else—and, quite frankly, hadn’t put too much thought into ever letting Bruce know just how much he felt for him. 

But as they spend more time together; as they revolve around each other so amiably, as Bruce leans towards him as if he, too, feels something similar to what Jeremiah feels—a desire to become closer—Jeremiah feels a previously buried courage begin to unearth itself.

Months ago he’d eagerly started the cultivation of their friendship by asking for Bruce’s assistance on the generators. Weeks ago he began to realize the extent of what he felt for Bruce. Days ago he knew that he was in love, but was so content with their friendship and so wary of disturbing it that he would have happily said nothing at all and still been absolutely delighted just by being Bruce’s friend. Hours ago—though it is hard to believe that it was only hours ago—he’d actually told Bruce that he was one of his best friends and was thrilled and elated when Bruce responded in kind. Hours ago he’d begun to consider, when this was all behind them, he might actually tell Bruce the depths of his feelings for him. Eventually. 

Now he knows that when his security features disengage and Bruce is able to take time to think things over without feeling trapped or smothered—the second before Bruce leaves, the second before they’re parted after spending such an unexpected but blissful time together, the second before he’s left alone when he’s starting to become accustomed to the continuous presence of his most important person—he must tell Bruce.

He feels so strongly, he honestly doesn’t think he’d be able keep quiet about it for any longer after that. It was a terrifying thought—to lay himself bare in such a way, his vulnerable heart resting upon his sleeve—but he has done things which have terrified him before, and he has not regretted them. 

Plus, Bruce has always been kind to him. He would let Jeremiah down gently if he felt nothing but friendship towards him. He wouldn’t let it affect the relationship that they had built, just as Jeremiah stubbornly wouldn’t let it change anything. Their friendship was something treasured, and he would never compromise what they had by greedily demanding more.

Still, there are times when he cannot help but allow himself to _hope_.

He is not, and has never been, a particularly optimistic person. All of his actions have been deeply rooted in pessimism and in needing to be prepared for the worst possible scenario, but there have been moments—

—Bruce reaching out to take his hand, Bruce sharing one of his rare and cherished smiles, Bruce watching Jeremiah shrug off his suit jacket and roll up the sleeves of his dress shirt before they’d started preparing dinner with something in his eyes that made Jeremiah feel hot—

—where he has begun to wonder if maybe…

Please, maybe…

Bruce sets down his empty bowl with a satisfied sigh. The urge to kiss him—anywhere, everywhere—is once again blossoming in the depths of Jeremiah’s chest.

“That was really good, Miah,” Bruce says, sounding about as content as a cat laying in a patch of sunlight, and—

“Miah?” Jeremiah echoes, equal parts delighted and flustered.

The delight manages to overwhelm all else when he sees Bruce’s eyes snap open and watches the apples of his cheeks and the tips of his ears gain colour, as if he’d been out in the sun too long.

“Sorry,” he begins, but Jeremiah will have none of it.

“Don’t be,” he cuts in, still too elated to be embarrassed about how fervent he sounds. “I like it.” He loves it. “No one’s ever given me a nickname before.”

Bruce turns to face him fully, blush still heating his cheeks but looking more composed than a few seconds ago.

Please, maybe…

“Miah,” he says, tone unmistakably fond.

“Yes, Bruce?”

He feels as though he’s sprinted a mile, with how fast his heart is racing. 

Please, maybe…

Bruce clears his throat and briefly glances away. When his eyes return to meet Jeremiah’s gaze they are just as brilliant as they had been during their first interaction. Composed and thoughtful. Beautiful. 

Perhaps, Jeremiah thinks belatedly, he’d begun the steady fall into love all the way back then but hadn’t realized it. 

“I’d do this all again if I had the chance, even if nothing changed,” Bruce says, a reiteration of Jeremiah’s own words hours ago when the security protocols were activated. “And, perhaps this is selfish of me, but I’m glad that if this had to happen at all that I—that you,” he fumbles, his composure splintering for a brief moment before he recovers, “aren’t going through it alone.” 

“I’m glad that you’re here,” Jeremiah tell him quickly, because even the idea of Bruce thinking otherwise was too much to bear. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone.” He takes a moment to ground himself, to take courage in the way that Bruce is looking at him, and adds in a voice that wavers more than he would like. “I would have wanted you.”

That’s too far, he thinks immediately afterward, too fast. 

He cannot be so bold when Bruce is still stuck in here with him for eighteen hours and has no way of leaving. Even if Bruce didn’t mind the aftermath of Jeremiah’s defences and seemed to be enjoying their time together it would be inconsiderate of Jeremiah to ignore the fact that, if he wanted too, Bruce wasn’t able to leave. He cannot, will not, act in any way that may make it seem as if he is taking advantage of the leverage that gives him. He doesn’t want leverage at all. All he wants is their usual equal footing, without the security features of his bunker skewing their dynamic in his favour. 

When the doors open Bruce is free to do whatever he wants, be it leave or stay or let Jeremiah down gently without worrying about having to spend hours caged in with him. Until then he must wait. 

“I would have called you right away if I were alone,” he tacks on in a rush. “Even if you weren’t here I would have sought you out however I could. But you are here, with me, and I am glad to have your companionship.” 

Bruce smiles again, and Jeremiah is helpless to do anything but return it. 

They clean up in companionable silence, shoulders and arms and elbows brushing. Bruce will glance at him, and he will glance at Bruce, and the tentative hope that has made its home in Jeremiah’s heart makes itself known all over again.

Please, maybe…

Please…


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Progress? _Progress._
> 
> <3

“Don’t laugh,” Bruce warns him as he peers into the office, having opened the door just enough to peek inside. “They don’t fit.”

Laughing is the absolute last thing on Jeremiah’s mind.

It was after their shared dinner, as Jeremiah was basking in the warm glow of it all, that he’d caught a few signs that Bruce was beginning to become uncomfortable in his formal attire. His weight shifting from one foot to the other more frequently than Jeremiah had ever seen, a few stray scratches to the back of his neck where the collar of his shirt brushed against his skin, rubbing his fingers around his wrists underneath the stiff cuffs of his dress shirt. He wore it well, so striking and so different from the usual soft weave of the subdued sweaters that he tended to favour, but he likely hadn’t picked the outfit out for length of wear. Undoubtedly he had thought that he’d be back in his usual attire once he returned to Wayne Manor. 

It suited him, but it was not what he was most accustomed to. 

And it wasn’t as if he’d ever left a spare set of clothing here.

What else was there for Jeremiah to do but offer him something more comfortable to put on instead? 

Night was fully upon them now—though the both of them were night owls who’d be up another hour or two, at least—and sleeping in the clothes he’d worn for their announcement would have left him even more uncomfortable than he was already, so what else could Jeremiah have done, but offer him pajamas? He’d excused himself to his room and changed into what he’d worn to bed the night before, though it was odd to be walking around his home in socked feet and a single layer of soft cotton—he only ever wore his bedclothes to bed and was always fully dressed outside of the confines of his bedroom. He was more productive that way. It gave him a differentiation between night and day, sleep and work, even though he was not touched by moonlight or sunlight—and he brought another set along with him for Bruce to change into if he so desired.

He’d accepted the pile of folded cotton, but his expression had been difficult to read when Jeremiah ushered him to a place where he could change before striding back towards his office. 

“I promise I won’t laugh,” Jeremiah vows, hoping that Bruce will take some comfort in Jeremiah stating it outright, much like he had hoped Bruce would feel a little more at ease if Jeremiah had also changed from his suit into something far, far more informal.

It had been strange to be seen in a way that no one had seen him since adolescence, back when he was still in school. He wasn’t much of an imposing presence like this, without his jacket or his tie or his cufflinks or his patterns. He feels younger, almost vulnerable, without the veneer of a suit lending his appearance a look of mature importance. 

But if there was anyone that he could afford to be vulnerable around, it was Bruce.

Not to mention, he thinks as he shifts on his feet and waits for Bruce to step into the office, there was something… Something about the way that Bruce had looked at him before he’d handed the offering over…

At his bare wrists and forearms, at the hollow of his throat, at the stretch of Jeremiah’s sleep-shirt over his chest and shoulders…

Something that made the spark of hope inside of him turn into a steady fire.

Bruce finally opens the door fully and walks inside.

It doesn’t fit. Bruce is not quite as broad or as tall as Jeremiah, so the shirt hangs off of his frame loosely and the hem of the pajama pants touches the floor. There’s a sweet sort of inelegance to it, one that makes Jeremiah want to smile, but he resolutely keeps his lips pressed into a line.

Bruce shuffles forward, his hands briefly and ineffectively tugging at the waist of the pajamas. He’d rolled it a few times and then pulled it up as far as it could comfortably go, but still the material brushes over his sock-clad feet and grazes against the floor.

He looks as though he feels vulnerable too, and something about _that_ makes Jeremiah’s heart start to ache. 

He’d wanted Bruce to feel _comfortable_.

“It could be worse,” he offers stiltedly, not sure what to say but certain that not saying anything would be inadequate, “imagine how they’d fit if I were short.”

There is a brief pause, and then Bruce’s lips twitch while the rigid line of his shoulders begins to ease. 

“I suppose you’re right,” Bruce says dryly, settling into his chair once again. The tension disperses completely and relief floods through Jeremiah in a palpable wave.

They lapse into quiet conversation; generators and green energy, the good that would come of it and their anticipation for the future of Gotham. They’d completed so much over just a few months, achieving a dream that Jeremiah had once thought might never move beyond the planning stages laid out in the confines of his office, who knew what the rest of the year would bring?

Or the year after that. Or the year after that. 

His focus becomes fixed upon their more immediate future as Bruce takes the lead by speaking about his home; the family history that had long ago seeped into the foundation, the places he wants to show Jeremiah, the stories he’d like to share. The intrinsic connection that he has to the spaces that he’d grown up in is obvious, and the invitation to enter the manor becomes even more precious. 

Jeremiah hopes that he can find a sense of belonging there. 

“There’s a place I’d like to show you,” Bruce says, reflective gaze turned inward, “that I think you might enjoy. It’s—it’s a secret, and it is very dear to me. I found it a few years ago and only a few others know about it.”

“You trust me enough to take me there?”

“Of course I do.”

The hope inside of him flares up. Jeremiah wonders if it is too strong, now, to ever flicker out of existence entirely. 

Bruce lightly taps his fingertips on the desktop, a strangely restless action. He was usually so good at sitting still. This offer to share a secret with Jeremiah must have been significant, even more so than Jeremiah had assumed that it was. “And in any case I believe that, at the very least, you would be intrigued by the door.”

“The door?” Jeremiah raises an eyebrow, not quite able to mask his disbelief. 

“You’ll see,” Bruce promises with a faint smile. “Trust me, you’ll like it.”

“Then I look forward to it,” Jeremiah says.

A shared secret; another special thing that connected them to one another. 

Bruce leans back in the chair, arms stretching over his head as his back arcs. A flash of warm fondness, so common now that Jeremiah is not at all surprised by it, smolders inside of him.

“Tired?” He asks, trying not to smile too widely as Bruce stifles a yawn with his hand. 

“It’s been a very long day,” Bruce murmurs through his fingers, “though that seems like an understatement.”

Jeremiah huffs out a soft laugh in agreement while his mind begins to pick up speed.

Soon Bruce would be ready to go to sleep. Soon he would lead Bruce, maybe by gently resting a hand at the crook of his elbow, towards the only room in Jeremiah’s bunker that had a bed. Soon Bruce would be tucked safely inside of Jeremiah’s sheets. Soon—

“Miah,” Bruce calls lowly, and Jeremiah’s attention snaps onto him as if Bruce had yelled his name.

‘Miah’.

He _still_ can’t get over it.

“Yes?”

“I don’t suppose you have a couch that I could crash on tonight?”

“A wha—no, no couch,” he answers, somewhat flabbergasted. Bruce nods in an almost sagely fashion.

“I can make due with the floor then, as long as you have a few spare blankets around. I’ve camped on much rockier ground than your office.”

“I’m not making you sleep on the floor,” Jeremiah tells him, aghast, after a beat of silence. The pitch of his voice raises in bewilderment. “You’re a guest! You get—you get the guest room,” he finishes firmly. 

Bruce folds his hands together and props his chin upon them. His eyes are dancing. Jeremiah could get lost in them.

“Jeremiah,” he drawls, “do you expect me to believe that you added a guest room when you were designing this place?”

Well, yes.

“Maybe I did,” he says, though he can’t quite find it within himself to outright lie about it to Bruce’s face. 

“I’m not kicking you out of your bed, Miah. I can survive sleeping on a floor.”

“Well, so can I,” he claims, perhaps a little too stubborn. Still, he can’t fault himself for it. “And I will.”

Bruce’s eyes fall half-shut and he looks at Jeremiah for a long, silent moment. 

His lips twitch again, the ghost of a smile.

“Are we both going to sleep on the floor, then?”

“What? No.” This is absurd, but it’s not as if Jeremiah can force Bruce to do anything that he doesn’t want to. “I want you to be comfortable, Bruce. It’s—it’s very important. To me. I want you to be,” safe, warm, at peace, “able to sleep without getting a crick in your neck.” 

“That’s very kind of you,” Bruce informs him. “But I can’t accept it.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Bruce starts, his eyes dropping down to the desk in front of them, “your comfort is important to me.”

This is the strangest stalemate that Jeremiah has ever been in, hands down. He’d laugh at it if he didn’t feel so flustered. 

He sighs, half amusement and half incredibly-fond-exasperation. 

“We’re both going to sleep on the floor, then,” he echoes Bruce’s previous statement.

He supposes it could be fun, like one of the friendly sleepovers that he’d never been able to experience as a child. Perhaps he and Bruce could stay up even later swapping Gotham urban legends with their faces lit by nothing but flashlights.

“Or,” Bruce pipes up, gaze still averted.

“Or?”

Bruce takes a deep breath before he raises his eyes, a stalwart determination etched upon his features. Jeremiah’s heart may skip a beat at the sight of it, at the memories that it brings. This is the way that Bruce had looked at him during their first meeting…

“Sorry?” He says, too caught up in the past to make out the words Bruce had uttered.

“I said ‘or we could share the bed’,” Bruce obligingly repeats.

Jeremiah very nearly chokes. Bruce’s eyebrows furrow in concern.

“You want me to be comfortable. I want you to be comfortable. We could be comfortable together, couldn’t we?” Bruce hesitates, beginning to look truly unsure for the first time since this conversation started. It makes Jeremiah’s heart ache all over again. “I suppose it’s strange for me to suggest such a thing. I’m sorry. I’ll—”

“We can share,” Jeremiah blurts, hardly able to hear himself over the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. Bruce looks up at him tentatively and Jeremiah forces a little more confidence into his tone as he repeats, “we can share.”

Fifteen minutes later Jeremiah’s heart may be hammering as if he’s in the middle of running a marathon even though he’s only walking from his office to his bedroom, but he thinks that his restlessness is completely justifiable.

Bruce, from what he can see of his face from the corner of his eye—because if Jeremiah starts directly staring at him now there’s no way Bruce is going to remain blissfully unaware—looks neither overly solemn or nervous. His eyes appear only half-open and he blinks slowly, and before Jeremiah can start worrying about how many hours he’s been awake or how much sleep Bruce managed to get the previous night they’re already at their destination.

Jeremiah opens the door with zero fanfare—there’s nothing inside worth showing off, except for maybe the thread count of his sheets—and turns on the main lights. The walls are an unremarkable grey, the closets hide away the splashes of colour that make up his wardrobe, his few pieces of furniture are well built but simplistic, his bed linens are a deep navy. This is where he sleeps and gets dressed, and there is nothing more to it than that. Really, having Bruce in his office so often was a much more intimate act because that is the environment where his heart and mind and soul resides, and that is where Bruce has unwittingly made a second home for himself. Still, there is something heady about the concept of falling asleep in the same room together, not to mention the almost-serendipitous but extremely nerve-wracking idea of laying in the same bed together even if they keep themselves on opposite sides. 

Perhaps Jeremiah should—

“You don’t have to offer to sleep on the floor in here, either,” Bruce cuts in just as Jeremiah is opening his mouth. “Though I can’t force you to do anything that you don’t want to do.”

No. Of course not. But time and time again Bruce has set himself down on a path and Jeremiah could not help but follow after him. It was always his own decision to go, but the idea may not have ever crossed his mind if not for Bruce setting out first. This will be no different. He merely needs to stop thinking about this as some sort of _progression_ —even if it does feel significant, even if he sometimes gets the impression that he is not the only half of the pair that they make who would like their relationship to develop further—and treat it as what it is at face-value.

There are two of them, and one bed, and the both of them are too obstinately attentive to let the other sleep on the floor. 

“I know you can’t.” He also knows that Bruce wouldn’t even try in the first place. He flips a secondary switch. There is no discernible change with the main lights in use, but the dim blue lights—necessary, since his room had no natural light and if he attempted to get in or out of bed without some kind of light source he’d be liable to break a few toes while stumbling around in the pitch-blackness—installed in the upper corners of his room are now on. Jeremiah has always thought that they made his ceiling look like an overcast night sky. He wonders what Bruce will be reminded of, if he finds himself looking up during the middle of the night. “I don’t have a—a preference about which side I sleep on, so, please.” He gestures, and Bruce determinedly follows the course of his hand.

He slips underneath the sheets on the far side.

Jeremiah takes a fortifying breath, and then turns the main lights off.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at this, an early update! And between you-me I think the last chapter won't take me too long, so be on the lookout for the final update before Tuesday. :)
> 
> The last few chapters might get borderline sappy, but guys I have wanted to write soft Wayleska fluff for so long, you do not even know, so you must allow me my vices. Gosh, these two. They deserve happiness (and each other).

An incredible awareness buzzes beneath his skin, making him more alert than he’s ever been. He feels as though he is experiencing the calm before the storm, on tenterhooks as he waits for the first roll of thunder or strike of lightening. 

He is laying on his back, and Bruce is laying on his back, and with the way they’ve situated themselves at the edges there is technically room enough between them for another person to fit. Jeremiah doesn’t tend to excessively roll around in his sleep but maybe he should put a folded blanket or a few pillows between them, just in case, because knowing his luck tonight will be the night where he endlessly twists and turns, or steals all of the blankets, or otherwise make a nuisance of himself. What a terrible time this would be to make a poor impression regarding, of all things, his sleeping habits. 

How strange that after the day he’s had—would other people have remained fixated on the attempted home invasion even in the face of something extraordinary like this? Bruce hadn’t, but Bruce tended to be fearless and stalwart, and was always proving himself to be a delightful singularity—he’s worried about what someone else will think of his _sleeping habits._

Or maybe not so strange, all things considered. The someone else in question was Bruce, after all. 

The reminder of _that_ leaves him on tenterhooks all over again. 

Perhaps it would be better for him to turn and face the wall so that he could not glance at Bruce from the corner of his eye even if he tried. 

“Jeremiah,” Bruce whispers. “I can hear you overthinking.”

“I’m not overthinking. I’m perfectly relaxed.”

Bruce huffs out an amused sound, not quite a laugh, and Jeremiah can hear him shift. Can see from the corner of his eye that Bruce is coming to rest on his side. Bruce is likely looking right at him, and Jeremiah is certain that he is now wholly aware of what one means when they mention having butterflies in their stomach. 

“I am still willing to—”

“Absolutely not.” How funny, how fitting, that minutes ago Jeremiah was going to suggest the same thing that he is sure Bruce was currently attempting. “You are not sleeping on the floor. I’m just—” Jeremiah sighs and turns onto his side as well, eyes—already deficient without his glasses on, and not yet fully accustomed to the very weak light that he sleeps in—tracing over Bruce’s blurry, heavily shadowed features. The blue lights in his room, though much more subdued than the radiant light of the generators, reminds him of that first test. Reminds him of the dawning realization that had been put into motion. Reminds him of how far they’ve come, side by side. Together in a way that he—at times quite fervently—believes they were destined to be. 

They’ve been closer than this. Much closer. They’re both perched at the edges of the bed like they’re worried about drifting into each other’s space, which had never particularly bothered them before except for perhaps months ago, at the very beginning of everything. They’d been so close while working together in the kitchen; standing and fully dressed with the lights on. To be that close now, in the quiet intimacy of Jeremiah’s bedroom, would be…

Well, Jeremiah’s heart pounds at the very thought of it. He’s almost certain that Bruce would be able to hear it if he listened closely. 

“I’m just—” undeniably and utterly in love with you, “—not entirely used to sharing my space like this.”

“I know,” Bruce whispers, his voice easily carrying across the quiet, seemingly insurmountable gulf between them. If Jeremiah reached across the bed he’d be able to trace the curve of Bruce’s cheek with his fingertips. But he’d have to reach across, first, and that seems an impossibility at the moment. “We’re both too stubborn at times, I think.”

Jeremiah snorts inelegantly. Bruce makes another sound of muted amusement. 

“I am glad not to be sleeping on floor, or at my desk,” Jeremiah admits, though he would hope that that much would be obvious. “And I am glad that you aren’t, either.”

“I am glad that I am not alone,” Bruce offers, even more quiet. “And I am glad that you aren’t alone, either.”

Jeremiah’s heart stutters in his chest.

“I wouldn’t have left you alone,” he protests. “Well, not unless you wanted to be alone, obviously. But if you wanted me I would have stayed with you. Even if it meant we both ended up on my concrete office floor, which definitely would have given us back aches, and would also be freezing at night. This was a much better option.”

Jeremiah hears something rustling and can barely make out a slight movement in the indistinct dark. 

“Jeremiah.”

“Yes?”

“Will you—” Bruce's voice cracks. Jeremiah wonders what his face looks like. Wonders if he’s glad to have the darkness concealing him. “Will you hold my hand?” 

The rustling sound shifts closer. Bruce is slowly reaching out into the gulf between them, tentative and likely ready to retreat at any moment.

Jeremiah doesn’t give him the chance, reaching out to hook the tips of their fingers together as tightly as he dares. His heart is surely lodged in his throat.

“Thank you.”

“It’s no problem,” he rasps back. His face is hot. He’s glad for the cover of darkness, too. 

“Goodnight, Miah,” Bruce says, gripping back at Jeremiah’s fingers.

“Goodnight, Bruce. Sweet dreams.”

He can barely make out Bruce’s eyes close, and he watches for a few minutes before he clenches his own eyes shut tightly. Eventually Bruce’s fingers begin to go slack, and that is when Jeremiah’s body takes a cue to start unwinding from the building tension of the day. Even as his oncoming sleep weakens his limbs and his grasp he can tell that the tips of his and Bruce’s fingers are laced together, and that makes it easier to accept his inevitable slumber.

Bruce is safe. He is safe. 

They are safe with each other.

Maybe it is that reassuring thought which allows him to surrender himself fully, because if he had been alone he is sure that he would have fought to stay awake. There would have been too much to think about and plan if he hadn’t had the rhythmic lull of Bruce’s even breaths to gently guide him under. 

His dreams are not haunted by memories or what-ifs, or the pages of a terrible journal. He is not chased and stalked through the woods by strangers with blackened eyes and red smirks painted across their mouths only to be caught outside before reaching his bunker door. He is not held down and forced to inhale the gaseous contents of a dilapidated Jack in the Box. He does not feel cornered. He does not feel trapped. Nightmares which should have been lying in wait for the moment his eyes closed are kept at bay, at least for tonight.

Instead he dreams of a firm handshake, of blue light, of following the winding paths of a labyrinth away from the fortified center. He thinks he might stir to wakefulness, once, heavy eyes opening a sliver for a brief moment, empty hand reaching, reaching, until he feels warmth against his fingers. He falls back asleep. He doesn’t dream again. 

He doesn’t wake up in stages. He inhales, and exhales, and then he is fully conscious again. He feels groggy, so it must still be early, but he doesn’t allow himself to drift back to sleep. Usually in the mornings he does not linger in bed at all—sleeping in gave him little pleasure in comparison to the work that he could be doing—however, this morning he takes a few moments for himself. 

Jeremiah keeps his eyes shut as his awareness reaches out. He can hear Bruce’s soft, even breaths. He can feel Bruce’s fingers, no longer interlaced with his own but still close enough for the tips to brush together. It’s calming and extraordinary and means the entire world to him. 

He takes another breath.

He opens his eyes.

He finds Bruce already awake, eyes partially open and looking right at him. Jeremiah’s vision has adjusted to the darkness, so Bruce’s features are not as obscured as they had been hours ago. His face is sharper too, not nearly as blurry as last night, which means they are closer together than they had been before; drawn towards the center like a set of magnets seeking out their other half. 

Jeremiah feels the pull, even now.

Bruce smiles at him, soft and sweet, as if he’d been waiting for Jeremiah to finally wake up.

Neither of them drags their hand away from each other. 

How many hours, Jeremiah thinks fervidly, how many hours were enough to be sure that he was doing this properly? How many hours until the doors unlocked? How many hours had elapsed since he could have first said something? 

How long had Bruce been watching him sleep?

“Good morning,” Bruce quietly greets. Jeremiah echoes it back, heart beginning to rush all over again. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you.” His fingers twitch, as if desperate to interlock with Bruce’s again. “Did you?”

“Yes.” Bruce’s smile shifts into a gentle, secretive thing. His eyes are dancing again, enthralling even in the dim light. His gaze steadily drifts down from Jeremiah’s eyes, as if staring at—

Jeremiah’s breath hitches. 

—at his mouth.

“I had a sweet dream,” Bruce tells him, words barely more than a sigh. “A hopeful dream. I woke up, and even though the dream was over the hope was still there. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Jeremiah manages to answer.

How many hours, how many hours, how many hours—

“I’m not motivated by dreams or compelled into action by them. But.” Bruce’s eyes lift again, searching Jeremiah’s own intently. Jeremiah wonders if he sees everything laid bare before him without Jeremiah even having to say anything at all. “Maybe some risks are worth taking.”

His racing thoughts turn staticky; an indistinct mess in the face of Bruce’s vigilant gaze. 

“Jeremiah, can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Jeremiah answers, once he’s managed to remember how to speak. Bruce’s eyes are still intense. Bruce’s expression is resolute. Bruce seems to be shifting closer.

Could he feel the pull, too?

“You can say no,” Bruce tells him. His voice is even lower, now, but Jeremiah can hear him perfectly clear. They are so close. The gap is narrowing. Jeremiah doesn’t dare move, lest he destroy the moment. “You can say no,” Bruce repeats, his voice cracking in the way it had when he’d asked Jeremiah to hold his hand. “But… Can I kiss you?”

The sparking of steady hope in his chest is sheathed by a wildfire of too many emotions at once—Shock. Happiness. Adoration. So much love that Jeremiah is surprised that he isn’t left physically aching with the weight of it being carried in his too-full heart—and in the wake of that ignition Jeremiah is left gasping for air and at a loss for words, perhaps for a second too long, because he can see Bruce’s face start to shift—

He reaches out and grabs onto Bruce’s retreating hand. He’s sure that he is holding on too tight but he cannot loosen his grip, too afraid that Bruce will think that he is letting go, or that Bruce will continue to slip away until he is far out of Jeremiah’s reach. 

“Of course,” he finally says, nearly breathless. “Of course, Bruce.”

He watches as Bruce’s eyes search his own. He watches as Bruce begins to lean towards him. He watches as Bruce tilts his head. He watches Bruce’s eyes slowly drift shut.

Jeremiah keeps his own eyes open. He cannot bear the thought of averting his gaze.

Bruce’s lips brush against his softly. It is warm, and tender, and so affectionate that Jeremiah’s heart feels like it’s ready to burst. It’s perfect; as if it was meant to be.

As if _they_ are meant to be.

Bruce pulls back after only a second of contact—if time had frozen in that moment, Jeremiah would not have minded—he looks uncharacteristically bashful, with colour high on his cheeks and tinging the tips of his ears. Charming and captivating and so deserving of love. Jeremiah threads their fingers together.

“Can I,” he pleads, half-desperate. “Can I, Bruce, please?” He follows after him, incapable of staying still while Bruce drifts further away. Bruce smiles and—

Meets him in the middle.

This kiss is firmer, lasts a little longer.

It’s just as perfect as the first. Just as perfect as each one will ever be. 

Bruce rolls onto his back and Jeremiah shadows him, filling up the space before it has time to empty. He braces one arm against the bed to keep the weight of his upper body from fully settling against Bruce’s chest and he gazes down at Bruce’s upturned mouth, his dancing eyes, his rosy cheeks. They’ve never been this close before.

He ducks down to press his lips to Bruce’s forehead, delighting in the way he can feel Bruce’s breath hitch. His lips trail down to press softly against the corner of his eye, his cheek, the curve of his smile. 

“Bruce,” he sighs happily against Bruce’s mouth. “Bruce,” he repeats, hoping that Bruce is able to hear the fondness and devotion and fervency in the way Jeremiah’s mouth lovingly cradles, forms, and pronounces his name. “Bruce.” They kiss again. He lets go of Bruce’s hand, but only because Jeremiah cannot stop himself from reaching out to rest his own against Bruce’s radiant face.

All of the words he’s kept back during their time together—everything that he’s felt that he hasn’t verbalized—is rushing to the forefront of his mind. There are so many things to be said. So many things which Bruce deserves to hear. So many words crowding his mouth and waiting to overflow. The most important ones being, of course: 

“I’m in love with you.”

He’s finally said it. Finally allowed the words to spill into the air between them. He can’t take them back. He would never want to take them back.

If anything he wants to say them every day.

“Jeremiah,” Bruce breathes, wrapping both of his arms around Jeremiah’s shoulders. He hides his warm face in the crook of Jeremiah’s neck, and Jeremiah rolls them back onto their sides so that his hands are free to lightly settle against Bruce’s back. “Miah.” His lips brush over Jeremiah’s skin as he speaks, discreet little kisses which send bright sparks of something pleasantly electric through Jeremiah’s entire body from the points of contact. “You make me so happy,” Bruce tells him, tucking his face deeper into the shelter of Jeremiah’s body. His breath is shaky as he says:

“I love you so much.”

Jeremiah feels as if he is being lit up from the inside. He hadn’t dared to dream of the particulars once he actually admitted his feelings, and even if he had he doesn’t think they’d even hold a candle in comparison to this. He hadn’t even been aware that a person was able to feel so much unrelenting happiness. 

“I love you,” he says, curling his arms tighter around Bruce and pulling him closer. He presses a kiss to the tip of Bruce’s ear, then into the soft curls of his hair. “I love you.” His eyes feel hot, his vision is blurring even further, he doesn’t even feel slightly abashed at the unmistakable sensation of tears welling up in his eyes. “I love you.”

He’ll never get sick of saying it.

Bruce turns his head slightly, pressing his lips against the underside of Jeremiah’s jaw. His arms slacken around Jeremiah’s shoulders and one hand eventually trails up Jeremiah’s neck to comb through his hair. When Bruce pulls back to look at him his eyes are wet, too, but he’s still smiling. It’s the most beautiful smile that Jeremiah has ever seen. 

He presses a hand to the side of Jeremiah’s face and darts in to kiss the tender skin underneath Jeremiah’s eyes, then he hides his face by pressing into Jeremiah’s shoulder, curling against him, nudging one of his knees between Jeremiah’s own. 

“Can we stay like this for a while?”

“Of course we can.” Jeremiah nestles closer, inhaling the faint scent of Bruce’s shampoo. There’s nowhere else he’d rather be. There’s nothing more important than this. “Anything you want, Bruce.” He brings a hand up to toy with Bruce’s soft hair, reveling in the unspoken permission to do so. His heart is so full, he can scarcely catch his breath.

“Anything you want.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While editing this I could tell that I've been watching a bunch of romantic period dramas lately, lol. A bit on the shorter side, but I really love how this turned out; it's a sweet little bookend and there are a few things that mirror the first chapter in a way I'm very pleased with. 
> 
> Thank you for all of the lovely comments, and the kudos, and for taking the time to read this. You guys really do encourage me to keep going! I honestly think that I needed to get this story out there and write something lighthearted again, and I am very glad to know that you've enjoyed it!
> 
> xoxo

Jeremiah does not sleep, and he does not stay completely still, either. Bruce is right here, safe within the circle of his arms, and Jeremiah cannot fully settle in the wake of such a remarkable thing. He runs his fingers through Bruce’s hair, and traces words of love and devotion along Bruce’s back, and presses as close as he dares. Bruce is lax in his embrace, his breathing even. He’d been lulled back to sleep like this just as he’d been lulled to sleep while Jeremiah held his hand. He knew that he was safe with Jeremiah. He knew that he could drop his guard around Jeremiah.

He knew that Jeremiah loved him.

“Dearest Bruce,” he murmurs in the quiet, as if testing the term of endearment. “Darling Bruce. I think we are destined to overcome a great many troubles together.” They had survived Jerome. Survived Jerome’s followers. Undoubtedly there would be more trouble following in their footsteps someday; they were too influential to not become targets for at least some of Gotham’s many other criminal elements. 

Perhaps it suits them, brought together by hardship as they originally were. But it was not just surviving danger side-by-side which endeared them to one another. Not in the least.

“I think we are destined to do a lot of good, too.” He presses another kiss into Bruce’s hair. 

He does not fall asleep, but he closes his eyes and allows himself to relax. He consciously mirrors Bruce’s breathing and in the back of his mind he wonders if their hearts have somehow synchronized too, as linked to each other as they are. 

The thought warms him all over and brings a smile to his face.

He cannot be sure of how much time passes, but when Bruce begins to stir Jeremiah pulls back just far enough to watch his eyes drift open.

Bruce looks at him, sleep softening his features. Jeremiah commits the sight of it to memory.

“I had a sweet dream,” Bruce tells him, eyes gleaming. “But waking up was sweeter, still.”

Jeremiah leans in to kiss him again and Bruce presses back with a happy sigh. Their hands fold together, fingers interlacing, between their bodies. Everything in this moment feels right. 

They linger in bed for a long while—trading touches and kisses and fond whispers—until they at long last drag themselves out of the bedroom. Jeremiah goes about the familiar routine of making coffee, though this time Bruce’s hands are folded on his shoulder, his chin tucked against him as he watches Jeremiah work. His chest is stretched along Jeremiah’s back as he keeps himself up on his toes so that he is actually able to see. His is warm, and close, and—

And he loves him.

Bruce steps back as Jeremiah turns. Their fingers brush as Jeremiah pushes a mug of coffee into his hands. The contact still makes his heartrate spike. 

Bruce lifts the mug up to his face and inhales the steam. 

“I would make you coffee every day,” he says, actually meaning to say it out loud this time.

“I would let you,” Bruce offers in return, gentle humour lacing his tone as he leans back against the countertop. He takes a sip, but his eyes don’t fall away from Jeremiah’s face. 

The draw of him is stronger than ever. 

Jeremiah sets his own mug down, settling his hands on the counter on either side of Bruce.

“You would?”

Bruce brings a hand up to rest on Jeremiah’s cheek, the transfer of heat from the mug making him even warmer. Jeremiah leans into the touch, turning his face just enough to press a kiss to Bruce’s palm before nestling closer. Bruce sets his own coffee to the side without breaking their gaze, and the air between them becomes charged with potential. Bruce’s hand guides Jeremiah closer and he, as ever, follows Bruce’s lead.

Their coffee ends up going cold, but neither of them mind overly much.

Time is inconsequential, but it still passes whether or not anyone is paying attention to it. Their first break away from each other happens because Bruce’s phone begins to buzz with Alfred’s name lighting up the caller ID. Ecco calls Jeremiah mere moments later.

It’s almost time.

Bruce dresses himself in his clothes from the day prior. The pajamas he’d borrowed are folded neatly on a corner of the unmade bed when Jeremiah enters the room in order to get dressed for the day. He slips on all of his usual layers with one small exception. 

When he exits his room Bruce is waiting for him, leaning against the wall with one ankle crossed over the other. He still looks so sharp in that jacket, in those colours.

Although he looked striking in everything, especially to Jeremiah. 

“Will you show me how to tie a four in hand knot?” Jeremiah pulls at the untied fabric that he’d slipped around his neck. “I wasn’t paying attention to the steps last time.”

Bruce smiles and closes the distance between them.

Jeremiah might not pay much attention to the steps this time, either, but he’s certain that Bruce will forgive his wandering attention. 

“Yesterday,” Bruce murmurs softly, gaze fixed on his steady hands, “when I was tying your tie, I thought about kissing you.” His finishes the knot, but he doesn’t pull away. He lifts his eyes to meet Jeremiah’s. “I was worried that I might be moving too fast if I did.” His lips quirk. “That seems like so long ago, now.”

“Yes,” Jeremiah agrees, feeling liable to melt at any moment. “Will you call me when you make it home? I’d like to be sure that you’ve arrived safely.” 

“Of course.” He reaches out to hold one of Jeremiah’s hands. “Miah?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Jeremiah leans down to press their foreheads together. 

Stars above, he’s so happy. 

They trail through the hallways, past the unengaged security doors, and climb the staircase leading to his damaged doorway. Then they are stepping out into a somewhat overcast Gotham afternoon, squinting their eyes against the natural light. There is a small barrier set up encircling what appears to be the entire aboveground structure, and beyond that barrier are a crew of familiar faces; Detective Gordon, Alfred, Ecco, and another girl that Jeremiah would hazard a guess at being Selina. 

“Alfred!” Bruce looks about ready to bolt towards his butler, but he curbs the instinct and turns to Jeremiah one final time. “I’ll see you later, Miah,” Bruce tells him before rising up onto his toes to press a kiss to Jeremiah’s cheek. “And I’ll call as soon as I step through the front door.”

Detective Gordon and Mister Pennyworth politely avert their eyes. Selina and Ecco seem to share a knowing look. Jeremiah pays them no mind. 

“Goodbye for now, Bruce.” He presses a hand against Bruce’s cheek, thumb tracing just below his bottom lip. “I love you.” He leans in once again.

He hears something—if he had to make a guess he would assume that Ecco and Selina have actually high-fived each other—but it matters little when he feels Bruce smile against his mouth. 

He is gone soon after, though Jeremiah could never fault him for being so eager to return to his friends—his family. Alfred is quick to pull Bruce into a tight hug which is returned with just as much enthusiasm. Detective Gordon smiles and ruffles Bruce’s hair. Selina draws in close as soon as Bruce and Alfred part, lightly punching his arm and saying something which makes him blush and look back at Jeremiah.

God, but he’s so in love.

Ecco settles beside him and Jeremiah turns towards her. She looks at him and the corner of her mouth turns upward in a slight but genuine smile.

“I’m happy for you, Jeremiah.”

“Goodness, Ecco,” he breathes. “Can you believe it, so am I.”

“I can,” she tells him, reaching out to briefly lay a hand on his shoulder. “The two of you are going to change the course of the future, you know.”

“We are,” Jeremiah agrees as he watches Bruce trail away. Bruce turns and lifts his hand in farewell before being ushered into the car, and Jeremiah cannot stop himself from waving back. “We’re going to make the world a better place, he and I.”

Together. 

As they were meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again. Much love. Stay safe.


End file.
